Maoris Hoarded Together In Crude Shacks

Chronicle (Levin), 9 February 1948, Page 3

Maoris Hoarded Together In Crude Shacks

press Assoclaiion)

(Per

• AXJ CKL ATs D, Feb. 8. In 167 premisea in tlie city there are 530 Maori families totalling 1513 persms. The houses have the scantiest of faeilities. Cooking is done by gas rings, grillers, kerosenc and open stoves, witli irnprovised slielves or cup1'oards for the storage of food and ntensils. Toilet faeilities are laelahg and the only means of obtaining drinking water is froin an outside tap or in some eases fronx the batlirooni. Tliese faets are contained in a report bv the City Couneil's ehief sanitary inspeetor. Mr. C. F. Paull, whieh has been eonsidered by the couneil's housing and health conimittees and whieh v ill come before the council on Thursday. Peveral examples taken at random from tlie survey of Maori housing in the city, are included in the report and illustrate the gross overcrowding that exists in many houses. One ease is that of an eight-roomed dwelling wliieh houses six families consisting of 13 adults and 13 children. Most of the cooking is done in bedliving rooms. In a five-roomed house six families fleep ia four bedrooms and share the

kitchen. Those families are made up of 12 adults and seven children. Mr. Paull's report cites the ease of five families made up of 11 adults and : 19 children, living in a seven-roomed house and doing most of their cooking in the bedrooms. Three other cases deal with fourroomed dwellings, one of whieh has five families and tlie other two or three families each. Two of those houses accomm'odate 18 persons each. In a six-roraed house there are 31 Maoris. The 12 dwellings taken at random from the survey, house 56 families totalling 261 persons, says Mr. Paull, wlio states that with sueh overcrowdi ng, general standards of health and hygiene cannot be maintained. ' ' The only housing the Maoris appear to have been able to obtain has been in the inner city and mainly in deeadent areas, in substandard premises, in dwellings in a state of deterioration, and in vacant shops, ' ' says Mr. Paull. "In one instanee a family is "living in three crude shacks that have been placed on a vacant section. Cooking is by open fire only and water has to be carried for more than a quarter of a mile."