Former Soldiers Face “Sickening Hardships”

Greymouth Evening Star, 17 August 1949, Page 4

Former Soldiers Face “Sickening Hardships”

“The public has no conception of the extraordinary difficulties under which sorne ex-servicemen are trying to keep theii’ families together today,” said Mr 1. J. Quigley, speaking on the housing shortage at a meeting of the executive of the Gisborne Returned Services’ Association. “Some cases which come under the notice, of the allocation committee are positively sickening in the hardships imposed upon women and young children,” he said. “What impressed me most has been the patience of ex-servicemen in the face of a situation which does not seem to get any better.” The numbers and urgency of applications for State rental houses were not decreasing. Not only was the committee swamped with cases of people in desperation about their original applications, but new difficulties were cropping up all the time as a result of the demand for increased accommodation from families with new additions. The executive decided to ask the Borough Council for an extra 12 Army huts for temporary accommodation on sections owned by ex-servicemen, pending the building of their own homes.