HOUSING CAMPAIGN

Evening Star, Issue 23351, 22 August 1939, Page 3

HOUSING CAMPAIGN

WAR-ROCKED SPAIN ORDER OUT OF CHAOS PRISONERS PROVIDE LABOUR Spain has taken advantage of necessary reconstruction after the civil war to push an intensive housing campaign which was begun while the conflict was going on, writes Sam Brewer from Burgos to the ‘ Chicago Tribune.’ Tho total cost of the campaign cannot bo estimated. A [preliminary estimate of £250,000,000 made before the final collapse of the loyalists, not including Madrid or cities in the territory held by the loyalists in March, probably will have to be doubled. That does not include rehousing other than replacement of homes damaged in the war. Housing in Spain was backward before the war. The Nationalists are determined to bring it up to date. It will cost a vast sum, but much of the labour can be provided at low cost by prisoners of war or men who otherwise would be unemployed. Generalissimo Franco’s Government has set up standards regarding overcrowding and habitable places. Every landlord must be able to show a certificate of habitability to prove that the houses he rents are fit for human use. In tho country n health register of rural dwellings has been established, and provincial inspectors hare been ordered to make surveys of their districts. Plans have been drafted for suitable one-family houses and others to house several families. General Gonzalo Queipo de Llano gets much credit in Spain for the initiative he has taken in Seville in providing good low-cost housing. BAD FOR ALL ALIKE. At the beginning of the war housing conditions in Seville were bad for tenants and landlords alike. Many tenants had taken advantage of the troubled period before the war to drop behind in payments of rent. Landlords, short of money for lade of rent, had neglected to make repairs. Queipo forced payment of rents by the more prosperous tenants. Since it was obvious the poorer workers could not make up their arrears, he imposed a levy in August, 1936, on the owners of better-class dwellings to pay much of the arrears to owners who had been unable to collect rents. He then turned his attention to providing more new homes. Seville had one “garden city” (a model housing development), but mismanagement and disagreement among builders, creditors, and management had reduced the enterprise to a state of chaos. For months only 10 per cent, of the rent due’had been paid. Queipo managed to straighten that out by the beginning of 1937. SLUM AREAS. In the Amate district, which he nicknamed the “ United States ” because of its mixed population, was the worst slum area. Under an order issued September 7, 1936, Queipo put hundreds of unemployed to work building new dwellings at low wages, most of the funds coming from the city council. By July, 1937, 6,000 slum dwellers had been rehoused. The work is still going ahead. All over Spain plans are going ahead to make rehousing and improvement of general housing conditions keep step with the work of rebuilding devastated areas.