STATE HOUSES

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22516, 26 September 1938, Page 9

STATE HOUSES

FIRST TENANTS AT DEVONPORT

(PIIESS ASSOCIATION TELEGRAM.)

AUCKLAND, September 25,

The first tenants to occupy a State house on the . North Shore were installed in their new home at Devonport ,on Saturday. The occasion was marked.by an open-air ceremony, held on the roadway in front of the houge, which is the first of about 50 to be erected in the district. About 200 persons surrounded the dais, on which the official party and the new tenants, Mr and Mrs Rutledge, were seated. The Mayor of Devonport (Mr H. F. W. Mcikle) congratulated the Government on honouring its promise to provide hemes for people to be proud of. Mr J. A. Lee, M.P., Under-Secretary in Charge of Housing,. thanked the council for the assistance it had given the Government in providing homes on such a beautiful site.

State houses, said Mr Lee, had been erected in 40 towns, and one was completed every 40 minutes. For every minute an application for tenancy was received, but the pace of construction was regulated by the lack N of labour and materials. The State had to meet the demand, but for persons wanting their own homes the State Advances Department was dealing with an average of 40 applications a week.

"The policy of landlords in refusing to have children in their homes is,definitely anti-social," said Mr F. W. Schramm, M.P. (Labour, Auckland East). "The Government's policy in encouraging families by giving first preference in the matter of tenancy to people with children is more progressive."

Mr Schramm added that it wa# the hope of the Government to provide some pensioners' homes on the completion of the present programme of construction. _.... -