THE HOUSING QUESTION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22166, 20 July 1935, Page 6 (Supplement)

THE HOUSING QUESTION

EXPLORING THE CITY THF. BACK STREET BREEDING-PLACE FOR SLUMS? No. I. BY CEI.IS GRAY " We'vo no slums here!" is the constant cry .of both councillors and politicians. " When you talk about slums you don't know the meaning of the word I It's in the Old World that slums exist —in London and Liverpool and on the Continent!" And they who have travelled overseas scout the implication that there are areas worthy of such description in a young country like this. Have you ever been through the "back streets"? We may occasionally explore some of tho more humble suburbs, noting the closely-built houses, many shabby, many pre-war; but each at least has some semblance of a garden, and many have attractive and productive plots; most have the ordinary amenities of life; the streets are neat; there is a sufficiency of air and sunlight. But walk through somo of our city back streets and you will seo all the potentialities of the forerunner of the perfect slum, and possibly the humid breeding-ground of crime—certainly only too often tho breeding-ground of immorality. Living in the Shadows Hero, in little narrow streets, running into steep gullies, are rows of small houses, half hidden in shadows. The tall buildings of factories and warehouses preclude the sun; no freshening breezes can ever blow around their eaves; nothing but a few sturdy and noxious weeds grow in the bare and muddy patches in front of the dwellings—if thero is any strip of land frontage at all. Many of the buildings have never known a coat of paint since their erection forty, fifty, sixty years ago; many are dilapidated in every way—loose weatherboards, rotten porch floors and posts, crumbling chimneys. There are but a few feet separating the houses, whose dry timber is a daily menace to fire and to human life.

Inside, the three or four rooms are small dark, low, covered with ancient paper that is faded, torn and dirty. A tap over a bench serves for culinary, bathing and laundry purposes. In these ancient cottages bathrooms are unknown; and unknown, too, is any degree of comfort, of happiness; squalor and misery are the only characteristics. Yet because these decrepit shacks are in the city itself they command rents that are not only exorbitant on a valuation basis, but extortionate upon a wage basis, though some of them have actually been condemned. And in many of them are existing—one cannot say " living " —two and even occasionally three families. One or two have electric lighting, a few have gas, but many rely on candles or lamps only; and practically all have dilapidated ranges; for, when there is no money to burn either gas or coal, scrapwood can be scavenged from the surrounding warehouses and factories, many of which put aside all their broken packing-cases for the small boys :who call periodically with their trollies. Shopping in a Back Street

V But if the buildings are condemned, why are, these people allowed to live here?" I queried of one talkative shopkeeper. He' shrugged his shoulders. " They cannot be turned out into the streets —and they have no money for higher rents—they can hardly manage their rents now." " But the landlords? Won't they do any repairs?" " Hardly—when the houses are condemned," was the reply. A litfle elderly woman, dressed in black garments as ancient as the decrepit cottages, entered the small, dark shop. " I'll have three pounds o those penny potaters," she said, " an' that thrip'ny cabbage, an' a loaf o' bread.' " Is that all this week-end, mother?" the shopman asked. " I've got a pound o' bones —them'll do for soup: Oh! I'll take siixpen'eth o' tea." And, packing her goods into a small kit, she went out. " That's got to do four people over the week-end!" the shopkeeper remarked laconically. ti j} u fc —but —" I stammered, bewildered, " that won't feed a family!" " It's- got to!" he replied rather grimly. " She's one wot doesn't like beggin' or charity—but she did it last winter when her ol' man got laid up, an' she hadn't no coal or decent food for 'in .-" When Youth and Poverty Go Hand I thought of the talks I had had with others —social workers, who dwelt in the midst of all this poverty; I thought of the young people—what effect had all this on/ them ? It meant that most of them knew no " home "—only a squalid lodging; the streets were their recreation grounds. Tho adolescents went to cheap dance-halls —if their " boys " had the necessary cash; or they went to the parks. They knew only the sordidness of life —youngsters who were hardly out of thcjr teens. Sometimes the girls, craving for tho little touches of finery which meant so much to the heart of Eve—or with sex stimulated by the precocity of poverty's experiences sell themselves surreptitiously. Too often only the girl is the wage-earner; the boy, unemployed, wanders aimlessly about tho streets in tho daytime; and then they meet and go out for tho night. Can you condemn them? They are young; they want to live; but life has nothing to offer them. Does not such conditions lie at tho doors of those responsible. Wo have no Blums like those in the Old World —yet; but in Auckland wo have all tho foundations of poverty, misery, squalor, unhealthiness as excellent breedinggrounds.