Family Of Four In Tents: Serious Plight

Greymouth Evening Star, 21 May 1949, Page 4

Family Of Four In Tents: Serious Plight

AUCKLAND, This Day (0.C.).— With water trickling underfoot in wet weather and the cold wind piercing the canvas, a young married couple with two small children are living in two tents on a low-lying section at Manurewa. They are Mr and Mrs A. M. Martin. They have been living in these conditions for four months, and they stated that all their efforts to obtain somewhere else to live have proved fruitless. The tents are in an uneven and muddy paddock in Coxhead road. It is necessary to walk through deep mud to reach them from the road. The tents are not weatherproof and have no flooring. A channel has been cut by water through the centre of the earth floor in the larger tent, which is used as a living room, and a stream of water flows down this in wet weather. Pieces of expensive furniture owned by the young couple are stood on planks to keep them off the wet earth, but signs of damage by damp are already appearing. No Lighting Or Heating Daihpness also invades the sleeping quarters. Mrs Martin said that it was difficult to keep the children’s bedding dry in wet weatner. Mr and Mrs Martin have been spending most of their time lately in gumboots, ordinary shoes being impracticable even inside the tents because of the wet ground underfoot. Having no lighting or heating, they go to bed as soon as it becomes dark.

Town water.has recently been piped to the edge of the section and water for cooking and washing has to be obtained from a small outlet pipe above a hole scooped out of clay. Even with gumboots on, it would be an ordeal to fill a kettle there. Cooking is done on an oil stove, but water for washing and bathing has to be heated on an open fire outside. Mr Martin said he had done all he could to find somewhere else for his family to live. He took two weeks off from work, borrowed a car and made a search in all the small settlements within a wide radius of Manurewa. A local farmer who is taking an interest in the plight of the family said he had made representations to the State Housing Department, the State Advances Corporation, the Child Welfare Department and the Manurewa Borough Council, but with no result. He said the State Housing authorities in Auckland, in spite of promises to do so, had not even called to inspect the place. Infant Children The two children are aged 5 months and 18 months. The elder one is stated to have just returned from hospital, having broken an arm in a fall from a sofa on to the hard earth floor. Mr Martin works at Westfield. He and his wife previously lived with a relative, who was compelled to vacate her house. The alternative accommodation provided for her was not large enough for Mr and Mrs Martin to continue to live with her. They lived for some time after this in a tent at Otahuhu before moving to Manurewa.