HOUSE FAMINE IN WELLINGTON.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17689, 29 July 1919, Page 5

HOUSE FAMINE IN WELLINGTON.

PROBLEM OF OVERCROWDING. DIFFICULTIES OF RETURNED SOLDIERS. (Fbom Ouh Own Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, July 28. Tlio housing problem ia a matter of great concern nt the present time to the poor pcoplo of Wellington, and even to thoso in fairly comfortable circumstances. Much ia made of tho overcrowding- aspect of this business, and it is deplorable enough, but tho overcrowding most often is done not by exploiting landlords, but by working people who let rooms in houses which they have takon at a. rent too large for their own purses. Tho worst phaso of tho trouble is that which affects every occupier of a rented houso. He knows that it may be sold at any timo, and lives in daily dread of notices to qnit. The man with a family of children can find no place of any sort to rent. Landlords can choose their tenants, and the family of children is nowhere. People .cannot bo got out of houses when a deal is made, and the worst task of house agents in thoso davs is not the making of a sale, but the obtaining of tho house for tho buyer after the sale has been made. In order to protect the returned soldiers tho Government made it practically impossible for a landlord to turn them out of a house. Tho result is that nowadays no returned soldier can ever get a house. No landlord will let a house to a returned soldier on any terms if he has snv thought of selling his prqperty at any time. V T\a legislation is not a protection, but a very great menace to the peace of tho returned soldier and his family. In the market for houses for sale and purohase there aremoro buyers than sellers, and as the buvers have money, values are high. Truly the lot of the poor man in Wellington at this tamo is hard.