HOUSING COSTS

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 56, 4 September 1945, Page 6

HOUSING COSTS

Sir, —I am glad to see that at last the public appear to be taking a live interest in housing costs, and I hope that your own article and the correspondence in your columns will result in a floodlight of publicity being brought to bear on this all important topic. In1 my opinion the lack of real home life in the main cities, particularly of the North Island, is in part responsible for the deterioration in the morality of the community, and for the reduction in the birth-rate. Every effort should be made to permit young people to own their own homes, where they can dig the ground and live a free and wholesome life, close to Nature. The cost of building today appears to be prohibitive as no average worker can afford to pay £2000 for a house plus £300 or more for a section. As the present Government is determined that the present standard of wages is not to be reduced, and in fact is going to add to the cost by the introduction of a minimum weekly family income, I would like someone to tell "me how the price of buildingcan be reduced. I am not skilled in finance, but it looks as if we must be prepared to accept a new standard of values for houses and all classes of goods, which means that our higher wages are not. getting us very much , further.-! am, etc.,