THE MENACE OF BAD HOUSING.

Evening Star, Issue 14638, 7 August 1911, Page 1

THE MENACE OF BAD HOUSING.

HOW GOOD CITIZENSHIP IS DESTROYED. A TYPICAL CASE. • [By' Charles C. Reade, Editor of the New Zealand 'Weekly Graphic.'] The editor of the ' Star' has asked me, in view of the recent lantern ketones on the " slums " of Auckland. and Wellington, to describe a typical example of bad .housing in our cities, and show by actual fact how ifc militates against health, life, and good citizenship. There is a certain type of haute, isouee_zed into a narrow space at the head of blind lanes in our cities, which at once comes to mind. In rear tie '.' back yard " is composed of a space exactly 4ft 'wide, sunk between the house iteelf and the wall of a two-storied etaile adjoining. No man, long inured to the decencies of suburbia, can adequately imagine just exactly what that 4ft represents. ill would be jue.t as hard, to picture the fiudden transformation of the little ilower feeds and garden plots that adorn the frontage of his home into a epace not Sucre than. 14ft square, littered about with i-übbish, and a privy at. one end facing his front door. But thie is an actual case existing-in New .Zealand to-day—-the facte of winch I now to reteite.

. Possibly few people know of a. fourroomed house placed between a narrow ■chasm-like yard and the unlovely epace in front. The slow march of decay is ■upon this city home. The roof leaks, and the floor boards, placed but a few inches above the ground level, shake as you walk over them. Near tb.3 fireplaces and in the corners are rat holes that lead down to the damp, humid earth below. The rooms are all narrow, stuffy places, where the wall paper is torn and tarnished to the ■color of a penny, and where, unhappily, vermin congregate to'share the humble lot of human beings. There ie a faint, oppressive odor, too, that hangs to the tiny bedrooms with their low ceilings, and the •wiudows that will not open because the ea.sh is warped : bedrcome, I mean, where the husband and wife and baby sleep in one (10 x 12) and four children eleep in the other (10 x 8). There is ako an old lady, who is a member of the household, and for her plumbers is reserved the couch in the "sitting room "—a .clumsy wooden affair that forms an important unit in the sum total of the household furniture. It is difficult to picture that decrepit little habitation where children have come into life and are growing up. :Here little minda are moulded - by the language, the habits, and the example of their elders. Here little bodies are being developed according to the methods and aeobMsitieft of the poor. Their fcod is contaminated nioro or less through the •conditions under wliich it is supplied in the one case, and in the ether by the eurroundings where it is , kept. Cupboards fire virtually a luxury in housci? such as this, and as for baths, finks, or incide taps—such things moetly belong to the great unknown. A candle box or two. and a bit of rough shelving answera all requirements. The food is "left there in the day, where flies arc free to roam, and at night nut into tins because of the rate that hold high revel there in the darkness. Th<Y-,c people, after all, are hopelessly inefficient members of tie community, down in the rut where the ordinary conveniences, and ramisites to dean- | line** -are denied them. They accept the : conditions thus hnpofed by poya-fy and '•'the rights of private property" with j that dumb aeqiuescent-e whlck .> the fruit ; of habit. • If the roof docs leak and the ! tats and the vermin are troublesome at I night, or the odors f-om the stable im- ' mediately adjoining invade their tiny! home, it. is., no. use,complaining. TheV ', never fee, nor do thev even know, who | is their landlord.. He leave?, it entirely.' to the agent to collect the weekly toll, and I -if the' tenants do" afk or plead for a: plumber to repair the. roof, there is always '" the stock answer"'- forthcoming! thai, repairs cannot, pofpiblv be i made without "a corresponding in- \ crease i n the rent. The . husband, a i casual wharf laborer, whose income fluctuates from 3Cs to £2 5s per week, accoiding j to the. trade of the port, is silenced beyond j protest. He knows'very well that at the rent he is paying (8s 6d per week) he can- ! not get another house cheaper, and he must i at all costs be near the water front in • order, to get employment. The wife ] grumbles to her neighbor, and the chil- ' dren, innocent of everything except dirt. I continue to play amongst the rubbi-h and j the accumulations of the yard. It is easy j to see how 'circumstances in such a. case, compel human beings to abide with things > as they are, and not what they mi.jht h\\ j Because of this, because our local authori- ; ties and Health Officers require wider '< powers to comp.d repairs, move air space, i and conveniences', here is a family and aj homo which is a living menace to the health of the community. The- wife keeps fairly well, but the husband has fits of coughing, and the children readily catch prevailing epidemics. If you could watch them at their scanty meals of bread and butter (sometimes dripping), the inevitable tea. and a bit of fish, meat not tvery day, or (as a treat) pork for Sunday dinner, if > you could realise the quality and the i nature of their staple food.:-, understanding } of failure, on their part Ln citizenship \ should become simple. Poor food con- ,' sinned amid-insanitary 'surroundings can! but produce pbysical" inefficiency. Unhap- j pily, as the 'history of older countries where actual slums are in existence shows, ! these defecU in the food supply, combined j with the habits of the people, arc more , often productive of disease, moral failing, ! and complete social incompetence. i This is no pictuiewjue sketch of life in I our cities. Consideration is asked, not for the fake.of a. thrill, nor merely an appeal \ to sentiment. All that is required for the •; moment is that the public should come to ; grips with what realities do exist in young '■ New Zealand—realities" hidden, away from i the gaze of citizens, in little, odd corners, I or squeezed into the uglinees of some con- : gested area where the least prosperous j reside. : The story of this human habitation is j not yet finished. In the "yard" there is j exactly one outside tap, that has to do j duty for the whole household. Lack of ; space compels the wife to hang out her j washing in front—that i,, when she is not out : supplementing the family income by cbar- I ing in other people's homes. The clothes, therefore, have to be carried through the houee before they can be dried. Thus, I washing is an inconvenience, and the mini- J mum of necessity is indulged in. The wife is 6till a young woman, now with line* of I care in her face. Her hair and clothes J have become even as the place—untidy, i disordered, and careless. The eye.s of a j young girl that once danced with'laughter j and the joy of living have become dull | and sunken, presaging the weight of years j and the loss of hope. Is she clean about the' house? Does she wash her children daily? These are questions one cannot answer in the affirmative, and yet, in .common justice, would you condemn her for the failing? She and her husband and the old lady, now' almost beyond house- | work, have lived in this ramshackle cot-j t.igo tucked away at tie head of a blind i lane for nearly seven years. For that j period of married life.'he has looked out • on to the dingv space in front and the j yards in rear, with its greasy «nU and curious odors.- She ha« mothered her chil- ■ dren there, and grown accustomed to ihe j surroundings. They are to her the nor-j mai. tie average, in fact, the.decent thing. j

She is now the creature of her environment. When I suggested to her, as we stood amid the debris one day, that she ought to have a better home, she turned dogged. "Wofs wrong with this, anyway?" ehe asked. "You could do better," I suggested. "It's good enough for me and Hawkins. We've lircd here nigh on seven years, we 'ave. We don't want to shift."' " Why not try for a newer house?" I ventured once more. " Why," she responded quickly, " find me a better house than this for 8s 6d—you cawn't!" There was the whole problem. This young-old woman had unconsciously touched a profound economic fact. The margin between the family income and their necessities could not stretch to more than 8s 6d per week. But how comes so cheap a rent in the city? That is just the final point I want to come to now. This cottage and its tiny plot of earth is but one of four human abodes squeezed into a narrow alley-way away from the public street. Four homes and four families each looking into the other's yard, all tainted witi the accumulated filth of years, no proper drainage, no privacy for the insanitary conveniences that- gape ot>sii at one anofher, and finally, no consideration from landlord or agent. There is only the dirt, the squalor and misery, whilst all around, shutting out the sky, the cleansing sunlight, and" the sweet winds of God, are high walls—walls of factories, stables, and premises of trade huddled together oven by the same cause* and the same necessities. It can be seen that 34s per week drawn from the earnings of these four working families is not such an unprofitable return from so small an area built away from valuable frontages. From the landlord's point of view such places pav. But does it pay the community to allow such places to fester at the heart of society ? The facts concerning these defective housing conditions in out cities may make melancholy reading, but we cannot afford to sentimentalise about them. It is a case to be up and doing. The details given here are not exceptional, but represent a more or less familiar instance covering many essential details that cannot be included in a oomipTehensive survey of city habitations such as I have been giving in ; Wellington and. Auckland. That survey I might add, in conclusion, is accompanied by concrete cases and intended solely as a preliminary to a discourse on the progressive methods employed in older countries to prevent the repetition of similar problems arising from exactly .similar causes.