REHABILITATING THE TRAMP

Manawatu Times, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3599, 3 April 1924, Page 7

REHABILITATING THE TRAMP

FREE MEALS AND BATHROOMS, As an experiment in social welfare the Metropolitan Asylums Board has established a hostel for the rehabilitation of tramps. The hostel, off Gray’s Inn Road, is like a free taoarding.house where guests are entertained for a week or so, and provided with facilities for obtaining employment. There is accommodation for about a hundred men, each of whom is provided with a little sleeping cabin which is furnished comfortably, even to a spring bed with good quality sheets and an attractive hed-spread.

In the dining hall the guests gather three times a day for meals at tables, each of which has accommodation for a party of eight or nine, while in the day room newspapers arc provided so that the men may keep In touch with advertisements. The hostel has bathrooms, with hot and cold water,and a special ablution room with basins similarly equipped. Should a man bo taken ill lie receives medioal attendance and is removed to hospital. The guests’ day commences at 7 a.m. in winter. Then comes, a moat break, fast, with a pint of cocoa. Dinner at one o’clock consists of eight ounces of freshly-cooked meat, with vegetables and practically unlimited bread. For tea, there is pint of tea, bread, margarine, and cheese. The only restriction on liberty is that men must be in bed by 11 p.m. and smoking is not permitted in their rooms, which they clean themselves.

The guests arc selected by the ward superintendents from men who pass through the casual wards of the board. In this way some hundreds of ‘casuals’ have been given a chance to rehabilitate themselves.

One who, having passed through the hostel, supplied the foregoing particulars, writes: “I can never be too grateful to the Asylums Board and its officers for giving mo another chance to become a decent member of society. My strength was built up by generous feeding, and now I am in work again.”