MORE HOMES NEEDED

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 243, 13 October 1937, Page 8

MORE HOMES NEEDED

MAKE WAY FOR TO-MORROW CARE FOR AGED AND NEEDY. Much is done for the very poor, for babies and children, but what is left in life for the elderly people who have not sufficient means of supporting themselves? asks a Wellington writer. If they cannot work, if there is no work for them-, if they have no children, relations or friends on whom they may depend, what can they do? The problem of the aged is becoming an increasingly difficult one. For the aged poor there is some provision made in the way of homes—an example is to be found in Wellington is the Home for the Aged Needy at Newtown, Wellington. Established as early as 1888, this comfortable old home has done much to help the lives of old men and women who deserve to spend the evening of their lives in quiet and harmony with a certain degree of comfort, but who could scarcely have eked out an existence on their own pitiably mean allowances or small pensions, if they had even this much. Home For the Aged.

The need for a home for aged gentlefolk with small means was realised 30 years ago by a well-known Christchurch pastoralist, Mr. Maclean, who left his large town house as a home for gentlewomen in straitened circumstances. Those who carried out his plans found the venture to be such a success that a branch has been established in the .same city. Mr. Maclean’s directions caused his ‘Home for Gentlewomen” to be run on unique lines. He not only left precise directions for the arrangement of the home to ensure privacy as well as comfort for the inmates, but established a fund from which small annuities for pin money should be paid to the gentlewomen who were his beneficiaries. There is something very fine and touching about this thought for the old and fragile women who are finding life so lonely; but very few people seem to be deeply moved by sympathy for the aged. There are oenevolent homes for the aged poor, but not enough of them. For the women who are not eligible for such homes, but are able to pay two or three or even four guineas a week for their keep there is certainly not adequate provision.

More Homes Needed. To-day much money is being invested in flats. Might it not be profitable to establish a large apartment house suitable for elderly women, to oe run entirely with a view to their requirements? It would require lifts. Bedrooms should be large enough to accommodate two easy chairs and a small desk, in addition to the ordinary furniture, and there should be hot and cold water in each room, and central heating. It would be important also, as in the English home, to have a nurse available for emergencies. Organised as are the community hospitals, with rooms graded to meet the varying incomes of the women requiring them, it might be possible, one would think, to conduct such an establishment on a paying basis. No doubt it would call for good business management; but it would require also a sympathetic, if not a philanthropic, outlook.