SIXTY MAORIS TO GET STATE RENTAL HOUSES IN AUCKLAND

Wanganui Chronicle, 6 May 1948, Page 6

SIXTY MAORIS TO GET STATE RENTAL HOUSES IN AUCKLAND

(P -A* «« ■ . .Auckland, May 3 Sixty Maori families are to be provided with State rental houses at Panmure. They will be considered for tenancy on equal terms with European applicants as dwellings in a block become available with in a year or 18 months.

Most of 200 or 300 Maoris who have lived for 10 or 15 years in mean shacks and erude hovels on the Panmure hills will be transferred to modern homes.

The allocation of State rental houses to Maoris represents a major change in policy. The Panmi -e allocation represents a beginning in prO X/’/ lg , acuate housing for 2500 or 3000 Maori men and women who ® r . e . e <! 7l f’J oyer } A n industrial areas at Westfield and Penrose. Apart from those who are already at Panmure, many exist under grossly overcrowded slum conditions in the central city, where surveys have suggested they live, on an average five persons to each room. Thev are contributing what is described as an almost overwhelming number of applications for State houses. Plans for Maori housing in the Panmure-Penrose area have been under consideration for some months Many sites were investigated, and the original proposal was to concentrate on Maori-occupied houses in one or two separate blocks. This scheme has now been abandoned in favour of a more general distribution among European tenants, as the authorities consider that communal settlements should be avoided in order to encourage housekeeping pride, promote social assimilation, and avoid anv suggestion of differentiation