WANGANUI’S EMPTY HOUSES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 115, 18 May 1931, Page 6

WANGANUI’S EMPTY HOUSES

JF DEVELOPMENT LEAGUE members Cannot get nearer to the facts than did the gentleman who was responsible far the statement that there are some 500 empty houses in Wanganui, then the sooner the League admits that it is dead the better. The Gas Department’s investigation reveals that there are 189 empty dwellings. Of these 65 are classed as in a state of disrepair or inconvenient for occupation. This ’eaves 124 to be considered: but after deducting 35 Castlecliff summer seasonal houses, a total of 89 habitable homes that can rightly be classed as empty is all that is left. These 89 houses, however, include those houses which are for sale only but arc not available for letting, those houses now empty due to the process of winding up deceased person's estates: and also those residences that are empty because they are in the transitional stage, namely, having a position amongst or adjacent to business premises, the land not yet being required for businesses, yet making the houses in the meantime unpopular lor letting. Again, the depression has caused many people to supplement their family budgets by taking in a boarder to the detriment of the use of larger houses for boardinghouse purposes, which movement must be common in every other city and town in the Dominion. After the foregoing deductions have been made it is quite evident that the surplus of desirable houses suitable and available for renting is very small indeed and that it would take very little to create a definite housing shortage in Wanganui.