SHORTAGE OF HOUSES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25394, 27 November 1943, Page 5

SHORTAGE OF HOUSES

PROBLEM IN AUSTRALIA EMERGENCY BUILDING SCHEME (N.Z.P.A. Special Aust. Correspondent) MELBOURNE, Nov. 25. The Australian Allied Works Council, which has been responsible for the greatest part of the Commonwealth’s war construction, is likely to be asked to undertake a limited war-time emergency house-building scheme. The Federal Cabinet has decided to investigate the immediate housing needs of war workers and exservicemen, as well as a long-range post-war housing plan. Any immediate Australian homebuilding scheme must be on a small scale because of the acute war scarcity of labour and materials. Housing conditions in the bigger Australian capital cities were recently described by the leader of the British press delegation, Sir Walter Layton, as “distressing,” and widespread agitation has been made for the introduction of an immediate building programme to relieve this shortage of homes. Australian housing needs in the postwar period are officially estimated at about 800,000 in the first 10 years, and half of these will be built under the Government’s scheme at a cost of £300,000,000. The remainder will be left to private enterprise. Plans are now under Government consideration to provide for houses ranging in cost from £750 to £IOOO in accordance with the needs of different sized families. For a family of five a house is expected to cost £9OO. The cost of this house and its land would be recovered by a weekly rental of 25s over a period of 25 years. Almost daily in the Australian capital city the newspapers publish details of serious overcrowding, in which small houses are shared by numbers of families. Appeals for accommodation for the families of men on active service are frequent.