STATE HOUSE RENTALS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27386, 11 May 1950, Page 8

STATE HOUSE RENTALS

Sir, —An Aucklander and a resident of Dunedin have suggested that we State house tenants should pay 2s 6d extra a week. Why penalise the widowed mothers of ex-servicemen and the boys who have come back from overseas service and have married and' have young families, when the National Orchestra, a ‘ luxury line,” is using up thousands of pounds ; Many of us were living in veritable rat holes and paying 25s to 30s a week to landlords who would neither give us tne material to brighten them nor do the work themselves, but were always there to collect the rent! These State houses were never built for profit, and thousands like myself bless the Labour Government for giving us a decent home at a rental we can pay, with a piece of ground for flowers and vegetables and somewhere for the children to play. Let this Government cut out all “ unnecessary expenses ana luxury lines ” and leave the State houses alone at their present rentals, so that they can be enjoyed by those who have borne " the burden and heat of the day ” and by the brave lads who suffered so much to return to a place they can indeed call “ a home ” at a rent they can all pay. ... . . . . Homes can never be thought ox in terms of pounds, shillings and pence, but as a humanitarian gesture by any Government for the people who they represent.—l am, etc., Hands Off.