A PALLIATIVE, NOT A SUBSTITUTE

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 80, 2 October 1945, Page 6

A PALLIATIVE, NOT A SUBSTITUTE

There will be some difference of opinion as to whether the City Council has taken the wisest course in selecting Kaiwarra as the site of a transit camp to relieve the urgent demand for housing accommodation. It must be admitted, however, that there were many difficult factors to be taken into account, and whatever decision, had been made iby the council would pro-

bably have been subjected to criticism from one quarter or another. If transit camps are to fulfil their proper function —to provide people with temporary accommodation until they can be given permanent homes—it is obvious that the major part of the expenditure involved in fitting them up for the purpose will be wasteful, in that there will be little return on the cost of labour and materials. For that reason there is virtue in selecting a camp that can be both quickly and cheaply converted to housing purposes. Transit camps, necessary as they are under existing conditions, must be transit camps and nothing more. That is not to say that the families that are accommodated should be asked to put tip with any kind of conditions. They must be made as comfortable as it is possible to make them in temporary quarters. At the same time it will be necessary to guard against making the accommodation too elaborate, not only because of the expense involved but also to discourage any idea, either in the minds of tenants or of the authorities, that transit camps might be used indefinitely to meet what should be a purely temporary need. In other words, the main objective—the provision of perjnanent homes for all who need them —must not be lost sight of toy the State or by local bodies. Expenditure on transit camps must not be allowed to reach the point at which it reduces the amount of money available for the erection of permanent homes. Transit camps should not be allowed I to become anything more than their name implies—a temporary measure for meeting what everybody hopes will be a short-lived need.