THE Opunake Times Established 1894 Office: Fox St., Opunake. TUESDAY, FEB. 3, 1948. NEW HOUSING LAW

Opunake Times, 3 February 1948, Page 2

THE Opunake Times Established 1894 Office: Fox St., Opunake. TUESDAY, FEB. 3, 1948. NEW HOUSING LAW

SO far no house hunters have put any propositions to either the Egmont County Council _ or the Borough Council with a view to getting tenancies of any vacant houses there may be in this district. Possibly that is because there are none. It will be recalled towards the end' of the last session of Parliament an amendment to the Fair Kents Act, introduced undei pressure from returned services organisations, conferring on local bodies power to take action to see that houses vacant for more than 28 days or only occasionally occupied were made available to homeless families. The Borough Council now has a copy of the Amended Act. Though the seivicemen's organisations put forward seemingly irrefutable evidence that good roofs were going to waste while families lived in disgraceful conditions, no cases of the new amendment's having been administered liave been reported ycl in any of the centres from which, news finds its way to Opuuake. Apparently (he new law holds no interest insofar as the beach "is concerned as the dwellings thereon would irndoubteclly come under the heading of mere "baches" not suitable for permanent occupation. A change to winter weather will hoAvever intensify the grimness of the house-hunt. Families who are at the moment putting up with the very sketchiest: of accommodation will naturally he looking for something belter with the onset of winter, and would be foolish, even blameworthy, if they did not explore every possible avenue of relief, ' oven at the beach. When the amendment was passed, its reception was mixed, and there was n great deal of sympathy for the citizen who had struggled through years of poverty to the point where he could build and maintain a spare-house for holidays.- Government spokesmen explained that they had no intention of conscripting genuine holiday baches which were not, in any case, fit for permanent habitation and usually not in localities that would make them suitable as homes for working people. But it would seem that locality would be the test in such a case. That such a law had to be introduced is in itself something of an indictment of our national character. It is to be hoped it will not have to be administered. It is believed that there is a fair share of the milk of human kindness in every !S r ew Zealander, and that there are few who would willingly let families of their compatriots go on suffering if they had the means at hand to help. That being so, it appears that what is necessary is not compulsion, hut the education of those who can help, to an awareness of the plight of those whose needs aie desperate.