STATE HOUSES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 191, 15 July 1941, Page 5

STATE HOUSES.

DEARER TYPE FOR M.P.'s. (Press Assn.) WELLINGTON, July 14 "F'our members of Parliament are occupying State houses." This answer to a question which Hon. \V. J\ash was asked ill Auckland recently was given to-day by the Minister in Charge of Housing (Hon. H. T. Armstrong). "In my opinion no explanation is necessary and certainly no apology," said Mr Armstrong. "We have no instructions that even members of Parliament are undesirable tenants. No member with only his salary to live on has a labourer's wages to take home after the has met the expenses that his position involves. He would haye to be very careful to bo as well off as the £5 a week man." Members ,wl'o did have State houses had the dearer type that were sometimes difficult to lot at all, said Mr Armstrong. "I have reports on all the State houses let in the four main centres,' - he said. "These reports show the occupations and incomes of the successful applicants. Only in rare cases does a man with more than £7 a week get a house. Fully 95 per cent, of the houses go to people with incomes ranging to £7 a week." The Minister produced copies of reports and pointed out that in most cases the incomes of the people concerned were between £'l 10s and £5 10s. "If a person with more than £7 a week gets a State house it is almost invariably one of the dearer houses nt a rental of £2 2s (id," he said. "We built a few of these houses in each of the four main centres. In some cases we had difficulty in letting them. Men on £5 or £6 a week often could not pay the rent. We therefore had to look for someone who in ordinary circumstances would not have received a State house." The Minister said houses of this | more expensive type were no longer I being built. j