CHEAPER LODGING

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22372, 19 March 1936, Page 8

CHEAPER LODGING

[NEEDS OP PENSIONEBS THE CONDITIONS TO-DAY ' DIFFICULTIES WOMEN MEET (Contributed by the Clergy Group, Auckland) Living on 17s 6d a week proves to the old people who have to do it that "man needs but little liere below, nor needs that little long." True, they have social security, their daily bread is sure, but it is the bread of carefulness with the butter spread rather thin. There is a spice of adventure about it, but adventure does not appeal to the old. It is quite possible to secure board and lodging in Auckland at a rate even an old-age pensioner can pay. The Salvation Army Workman's Home, off Wellesloy Street, charges 13s 3d weekly. It is a large concrete building, well kept aud well managed, and largely patronised. This is a good place of its kind, but hardly an ideal retreat for old age. Yet old-age pensioners live there. One pensioner, well over 70 and beginning to-fail, pays 14s in a private family. He has a tiny room, fairly furnished, in an old and rather insanitary house. The people are kindly but rough, the food sufficient, but is. he complains, "thrown at him." His wife died last year and he feels the loss .very keenly. There are hundreds of lodging houses j in Auckland where furnished rooms may be had from 12s 6d to 6s ■weekly, and beds down to ss. One large place, which rather specialises in old-age pensioners, charges from 4s. The accommodation is in keeping. One of the best of these places houses from 20 to 30 lodgers nightly. It is run by a very 'hard-working couple, who complain that, owing to the heavy rei.t, they find it difficult to make the place pay. It is clean and well kept, the rooms containing as many beds as they will hold. The charge is Is nightly, or 5s weekly, with a cup of morning tea gratis. A small room, free to lodgers, is fitted with three gas rings, crockery and cooking utensils, knives, forks and spoons,' a table, and two chairs. A penny-in-the-slot meter yields enough gas to cook a meal. Resourceful Catering One pensioner who lived in this house added some bread and butter to the morning tea and called it breakfast. For dinner he went to a restaurant, where for ninepence he got a surprisingly good meal —soup, meat or fish, potatoes and two vegetables, the choice of half a dozen puddings, two cups of tea, and unlimited bread and butter. The food was good, well cooked and well served, and in his words, set him up for the day. Tea was bread and butter, with an occasional egg when they wore cheap. His favourite recreation was fishing, and the fish—when any—served for tea and occasionally for dinner. Board seldom cost him more than 7s a week, and he looked well on it. Baches are in great demand, and have multiplied of late years, especially in the basements of houses built on a slope, and in outbuildings. Some are not fit to live in, and yet let. The best seen was originally a substantial shed, now divided into two —ft bedroom, Bft. by 7ft., matchlined, with bed, tiny table under the small window, chair, electric, light, rack with four plates, two cups and saucers, knife, fori and spoons, the bed linen changed every week—a small, but comfortable-looking place. The other part was left in its rough state, and contained a tin bath, cooking? utensils, gas ring and shilling-in-the-slot meter. A Great Misfortune It was let at 6s to a quiet old Scotsman, who did his own cooking, and passed most of his time smoking and reading Wild West romances. He seemed to live fairly well on the then 16s 6d pension, till a great misfortune befel him; an accident destroyed his coat and his only unpatched pair of trousers just after he had painfully financed the purchase of a pair or boots. Fortunately it was pension week, and they were replaced from a second-hand shop, but food expenditure that month had to be cut down to sixpence a' day. He lived mostly on porridge, sometimes with, but mostly without, milk. , While it is comparatively easy tor single men to procure house-room of a kind, the same cannot be said tor a lone woman. A room to herself is almost a necessity, and she usually finds great difficulty in finding one at a rent she can pay. There are no lodging houses catering for women of her income. Even in private houses where rooms are to let the lady is usually adverse to letting to women, saj ing they give too much trouble. A decent room, unfurnished, can seldom be had for less, than 6s, a similar room, furnished, costs at least 7s 6d. Two girls can lodge together and be happy, but elderly women seem incapable of doing so. And the pension at 60 is 15s 4d a week. Low Diet and Loneliness Cooking is usually done over a gas ring in the bedroom, but often there is painfully little to cook. Women have more needs than men, and food is apt to rank low down in the scale. It is astonishing how little a woman can contrive to live on, but a constant diet of tea and bread and butter must in time affect the mental as well as the bodily health. Lonely women in rooms are apt to shrink into themselves, become morbid, and even become mentally unbalanced. Among the effects of ;,n old woman removed to » mental hospital for treatment was found an old-fashioned sampler. Her fingers were knotted with rheumatism, but on the sampler was embroidered the text, not quite finished, "The desolate He hath set in families." Veterans Foregather Old men seldom shut up themselves to brood in this fashion. They love to gather in little groups to discuss current affairs, to recall old times, and deplore the degeneracy of the younger generation, as old men have done from time immemorial. Such groups can be seen any fine day on the waterfront, in public reserves, and in places such as the frontage of the Pitt Street Methodist Church, where the low concrete wall offers a handy if somewhat chilly seat. A favourite place is the park at the corner of the old Symonds Street cemetery. There many a whiteheaded, white-bearded veteran may be seen sunning himself, his staff by his 6ide, his pipe in . his mouth and an expression of placid content on his face. It is a pleasant sight, which most of us are the better for seeing. In a 4 different way, the old are just as indispensable an element in the community as the children and should have as much care and attention.