This Panmure home is typical of the low-cost high-quality housing built by the Department of Maori Affairs. Last year 129 such houses were built in the Auckland metropolitan area and although such an effort cannot be the complete solution to the problem, the department's scheme produces more good housing for the Auckland Maori than all other sources combined. HOUSING: AN URGENT PROBLEM by ELSDON CRAIG The most urgent problem facing the Maori people is that of housing. Better housing is the solution for most of their social evils. Nowhere is the need for adequate housing more apparent than in Auckland, the main centre of the urban Maori population. Houses are less easy to obtain in urban areas than they are in the country districts. Consequently, pakeha landlords with homes to let are inclined to give preference to pakehas and to refuse accommodation to Maoris. Many of these landlords feel that the Maori is not as capable as the pakeha in looking after rented premises, basing their opinions on the many dilapidated Maoris homes they see in some localities. This tendency to discriminate against coloured people and to generalise unduly on questions of Maori behaviour is a contradiction of the proud claim of New Zealanders that Maori and pakeha are equal. The prejudices against Maoris are more apparent in Auckland than elsewhere. Early in the process of migration of the Maori from the country to the town there was a determination by many pakehas to discourage the movement. They insisted that the Maori was better off in the country where he could pursue his communal habits and cultural interests than he would be in the city. But this attitude was really prompted by the feeling that the Maori, with different social and cultural standards, would become a problem in a closely-settled and essentially European community. It is significant that fewer objections to the presence of Maoris in the city have been heard in recent years. There has been a greater will-