The Bay of Plenty Beacon Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. FRIDAY, JUNE 21, 1946 HOUSING

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 9, Issue 89, 21 June 1946, Page 4

The Bay of Plenty Beacon Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. FRIDAY, JUNE 21, 1946 HOUSING

STATEMENTS by an Auckland daily of recent date serve to indicate the hopeless state of affairs, as far as housing is concerned, that exists in metropolitan centres. We read of returned soldiers, compelled to pay £2 10/- weekly for caravan hire and ground rent; of whole families living by force of circumstances in one room; of homes destined for three persons housing a dozen or more, and of unscrupulous houseowners and landlords, capitalising the misfortunes of their felow-men by charging as much as £2 10/- a week for bed and a morning tray. These facts have set us furiously to think. Residents in the country count themselves lucky that the comparative freedom of rural living makes such conditions impossible; that the abundance of fruit, milk, firewood and vegetables is an eternal safeguard against anything of that nature ever taking place in a town such as Whakatane. On the surface this assumption would appear to be correct. The happy story however is definitely denied by the facts as they exist, and can be proven to exist. How many ex-sol-diers from the last war can tell the same bitter tale of thwarted hopes and frustrated plans, which on their return appeared to beckon them direct to home and settled happiness. How many married ex-Kiwis, even in this community, having left or sold their homes in order to get away, and having made alternative arrangements for their families, find themselves now stranded, with vague and uncertain outlook as to even the prospects of a home. Recently, this paper drew attention to an ex-serviceman with his wife and three children living in a tent on the river-bank. That family went through the easterly storm under the same flimsy shelter, and is still living there. Winter is approaching, and the youngest child is little more than a baby ! Another ex-Kiwi lives in a back-room to a shop on the Strand under conditions so trying that under medical orders his wife has been sent away for treatment. These cases are not isolated. There are dozens of others which could be enumerated but for the risk of hurting the pride of those concerned. It has been stated when the subject was first introduced at Borough Council meetings that the shortage was Dominion-wide, and that little could be done about it. We still have vivid recollections of the Deputy-Mayor’s losing battle to have at least temporary shelters erected in the Domain. Had such a scheme been acted upon quickly when dozens of Army huts were available, instead of being shelved indefinitely, Whakatane might be in a different position today as far as accommodation goes, and the cost of the hutments almost liquidated in the rents received. To crown the injustice of the existing situation, it is a fact that are in this Borough isolated houses which are vacant, and which have been vacant for some time- Whatever the circumstances dictating the cause we want to say publicly, that this state of affairs in the face of the desperate need of houses by men who have fought for us is utterly wicked, and inexcusably wrong.