THE HOUSING PROBLEM.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XIII, Issue 77, 15 March 1923, Page 2

THE HOUSING PROBLEM.

SHORTAGE OF TWENTY THOUSAND. BOARD OF HEALTH’S PROPOSALS * Wellington, March 14.

A meeting of the Board of Health Was held at Parliament Buildings today, the Minister, the Hon. C. J. Parr, presiding. The Health Department furnished an exhaustive report on the staffing, dietary and general efficiency of private nursing homes, some 212 in all. The Board decided to ask the four nurse inspectors to meet a committee of the medical men on the Board in order to make further inquiries regarding the general efficiency of homes and to report to the- next meeting of the Board.

A lengthy, discussion on the housing problem was initiated by Dr. J. S. Elliott, who declared that there was Still a shortage of 20,000 houses throughout the Dominions The need for more houses within the means of tlie average worker was unanimously admitted, but there was a wide diversity of opinion as to the best methods of solving the problem. The Minister expressed the opinion that a solution was to be found in furnishing more liberal advances on a better basis of valuation to enable individual workers to build their own homes. He was in a position to say that, as already foreshadowed by the Premier, important legislation in this direction would probably be introduced early next session, greatly increasing the maximum amount of advance's and offering more favourable terms of repayment. A resolution was carried urging the Government (1) to increase and improve the facilities under which individual workers can build and acquire their own houses, (2) to remove rent restrictions wherever they tend to hamper and prejudice private enterprise, (3) to encourage housing by advances to buildin gassociations and private builders.