SERIOUS SETBACK

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20096, 16 November 1939, Page 2

SERIOUS SETBACK

STATE HOUSING JOBS CARPENTERS IN CAMPS 20,000 SEEKING HOMES NORTH ISLAND WORST (Pur Press Association.) WELLINGTON, this day. The transfer of men, mostly carpenters, from State housing work to jobs in military camps, has given the Housing Department a serious setback and consequent difficulty has been experienced in keeping bricklayers and plasterers going, said the Minister-in-Charge of State Housing, the Hon. H. T. Armstrong, in an interview. Now that the men were resuming work with the department, the position, so far as labour was concerned; would be eased considerably for the Dominion on as fast as possible. 9JMpisands of Applications “There has been a falling-off in the number of applications for loans by people wishing to build their own homes, but it has not been nearly as marked as we expected it to be,” said Mr. Armstrong. “Applications for rental houses, however, are just as numerous as ever, There are well over 6000 applications pending in Wellington alone and over 7000 in Auckland. For the Dominion as a whole the applications number about 20,000.

“We are- definitely catching up with the leeway in the South Island, where the housing shortage is not as serious as it is in parts'of the North Island,” Mr. Armstrong added, “but I can see no prospect of making very much impression on the shortage so far as Wellington and Auckland are concerned for many years to come. If the war has? the effect of ■ causing private enterprise to build less, we will simply have to build more. The work must go on.”