SHORTAGE OF HOUSES.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 10 July 1925, Page 3

SHORTAGE OF HOUSES.

CONDITIONS AT AUCKLAND. VAIIILIUS CROWDED IN ONE: ROOM. Arresting remarks on the housing conditions in Auckland as compared with similar conditions, in Gieat Britain me made by the Rev. Lionel B. Fletcher, of the Beresford street C dug relational Church. All*. Fletcher said his work brought him. into intimate touch with the lives of families in the thickly populated areas surrounding his church. In, eight years of intimate connection with the crowded conditions, of the British cities Mr. Fletcher said that Mrs. Fletcher and himself saw housing conditions which were truly appalling. Mr. Fletcher said he was not saying that the conditions in .some British cities; were not far worse, than Auckland. What he did say, however, and say emphatically, was that there wore conditions in Auckland which .should lie considered a disgrace to any young and progressive country. “What do you think for example.” lie asked, “of five people, father, mother, and three children. including a girl entering her teeiik. all sleeping, eating, and cooking entirely in one room? Now that is a case iu Auckland, and not very far from my church. Originally there were seven of them in that room, but two have now gone elsewhere. In this e.'ty there are a number of families living in one room, and a number of houses with, up to five families dividing r'ne house between, them. Such conditions must result in child immorality,'and il you care to go to the proper sources for .information von will discover that the number of children’ who are becoming immoral is enough, and more than enough, to cause grave concern to every lover of his fellow beings. Immorality of the grossest kind must follow crowded housing conditions, and those who are doing such excellent work in New Zealand for the child life of the nation are handicapped ail the time bv the fact of these cowl Rons.” ALLEGED BINGS.

“AM about us we hear talk of brick rings, timber rings, and exorbitant profits- in bulking materials, and so on. 1 am not asserting that such things exist in Auckland, but .1. do assert that it is common report .that they do exist. I consider, therefore, that it is the duty of £he civic authorities to put themselves in a position to say whether these things 1 are so or not. “Such a commission would inquire whv a house can lie built in Dunedin for .so much less than in Auckland. It would also inquire into- the statement that if a builder in Auckland brings bricks from some other city to build a house he will find it impossible to buy other building material here. 1 do not- know they are being made. If they are true then all I have to say is that the majority are bing enslaved by the few. and such a condition is absolutely wrong and must be set right. No vested interest must ever be allowed to stand in the way of progress of a nation. Nor must it lie allowed to interfere with the common rights of every individual.”