HOMELESS FOLK

New Zealand Times, Volume XLVI, Issue 10716, 9 October 1920, Page 6

HOMELESS FOLK

YET UNOCCUPIED HOUSES. WELLINGTON POSITION YEN TIL ATED IN PARLIAMENT. When did the Prime Minister propose to introduce the Housing Bill? asked Mr P. Fraser, M.P., •■;. in the House of Representatives yesterday afternoon. He had met, he stated, a man from Waitara, who had come to Wellington to get a job at £6 a week. The man had been looking for a house in Wellington and could, not get one; and he was staying at an accommodation house and paying six guineas a week for himself, wife, and two children. with the result that he had rad to let his insurance, etc.,-, go. At the same time quite a number of houses were being held unoccupied; vin Wellington; and the hon. member trusted that the Prime Minister would afford somp remedy in the bill.- ■ Mr Massey stated that the hill .was in course of preparation now. It was in charge of the Minister for Laoour, who was particularly anxious to get il before the House. , Mr G. Witty (Riccarton).gsked whether in framing the bill the Prim* Minister would also take into oonsid. oration the other side of the question, and see that provision was-made to meet the eases of widows and others who owned houses but could not get into them, whilst the present occupiers were “farming” the houses , room by room. - , , The Prime Minister replied that he had not seen a draft of the bill; but he knew from conversation , with the Minister for Labour that something of the kind was contemplated, y