FAMILY OF EIGHT

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 202, 24 May 1944, Page 6

FAMILY OF EIGHT

No Accommodation Found In'Wellington SEARCH FOR STATE RENTAL HOUSE A family of eight—man, wife, and six children— walking the streets in Wellington unable to find accommodation, the State Advances Corporation unable to find them a State rental house, nnd no person able to tell them of any district j in New Zealand in which would be work for the husband and accommodation for the family. That is the story told last night by Mrs. McAuley, the wife. “My husband was employed in Auckland driving for a firm on Internal Marketing Division business," she said. ”''e have six children, aged 13, nine, seven, five, three, and one year. Our. application for a State rental house in Auckland was first made in 1941. We were finding it impossible to get accommodation, and as the family grew boardinghouses would not give us, accommodation. Finally, the first five children were boarded out. and I was in a bonrding-bouse. “Then the last child arrived, and I had to leave the boarding-house I was in. They would not. have the baby there. Then with the other children. I wont to a fiat at Cockle Bay which a friend of mine had been occupying. Her husband had gone overseas nnd she was going to live with her mother while he was away and invited me to occupy (lie flat in the mean time. , “The landlord of the flat immediately prosecuted her for allowing the children to be there. In desperation wo went to the member for the district, Mr. C. R Petrie, who advised US to come to Wellington. The housing position, he told us, would he easier here ns more building was going on. He arranged tor its to travel, and we came to Wellington in March. ... , “Aly husband obtained employment with the Railways Department ns a driver. but we could not get a house. Ha boarded with a brother.while I nnd the children got accommodation nt a board ing-house in Upper Hutt. I hejped in the housework there, paying ioß’/; « week for the children. Litter, when I iuiq to go round looking f£»r a house, for the hoarding-house keener would not continue having the children there, we were pay ing £2 a fortnight for my husband s board £2 a fortnight for two of the children who we hnd boarded at a home in Upper Hutt, and £6/6/- for myself and the four other children at the boarding-house. Jlie climax came when the five of us were crowded into one room there and we were finally given a fortnight’s notice to get out. , . Left With Nowhere to Go.

“We approached the State Advances Corporation again and again and on Friday hist my husband and I sat down in the office and said we were not getting out till , they found us accommodation. Eventually a man came along and asked us to go as they were closing the office. “We had to go out, and as all my goods had been thrown out of the hoardinghouse at Upper Hutt there was nowhere for its to go. . “We found that the priority of our 1641 application for a State rental bouse in Auckland was not transferable to Wellington, there being no machinery for that. “A man had been put into our room in the Upper Hutt boarding-house, but we were in the end directed to a man who has very kindly, though he has a wife and three children of big own, put me and the four children up since Friday, the day we had to leave the boarding-house. “It has been impossible to find other accommodation for the children. Homes which normally might take them as boarders are unfortunately closed to them because' of outbreaks of scarlet fever ill them, and it will be some weeks at least before they can be taken there “Since Friday my husband and T have contacted the social welfare branch lit (he hospital and other charitable organizations without success. My liusbanti has offered to work anywhere in New Zealand where a house cun be found tor us, and Hie National Service Department and the Railways Department have expressed willingness to facilitate the transfer if anyone can give information as to where a house is available. “In the meantime a very good friend has approached the Parliamentary Un-der-Secretary to the Prime Minister, Mr. Thorn, and a number of departmental heads, but we are still in the same position.”