Single-roomed Flats Are New Idea in Britain

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 30, 5 February 1937, Page 11

Single-roomed Flats Are New Idea in Britain

A recent deputation of women to Mr R. S. Hudson, Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health, submitted that the Ministry should institute an inquiry into tho need for the provision of one-roomed flatlets in connection with housing schemes. The Over Thirty Association in England, which had organised the deputation, hus investigated ou a limited scale the position of a number of middleaged and elderly women who pay an exorbitant part of small earnings for the single rooms they rent. The conditions revealed (The Times reports), suggested the desirability of a more comprehensive survey and the consideration of means by ■which the needs of “one-person families” could be met. Miss Rathbone, M.P., said that, although (5.7 per cent of all . families in England and Wales consisted of one person only, local authorities had no power to build special accommodation for them with the benefit of a subsidy, except in connection with tho clearance of slums and the abatement of over crowding. The greater proportion of these oneperson families were women and a largo increasing percentage were middle aged and elderly women who lived alone and were under tho necessity of earning their own livelihood. They wero far more dependent ou the nature of their homes than men in similar circumstances, because they spent so much more time at home. Grade for grade, their earnings were less than those of men, and they could not afforcl the rents, varying, according to an investigation made of typical cases, from 9s to 15s a week, which they were called upon to pay for single rooms in dreary and unattractive surroundings. Private enterprise could not bo depended on to solve the problem, and local authorities should therefore be encouraged to provide accommodation independently of their slum clearance and overcrowding proposals and bo given a subsidy towards the cost.