City’s Human Derelicts

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1035, 28 July 1930, Page 8

City’s Human Derelicts

QUESTION OF REST HOMES THE suggestion, placed upon the Order Paper of the House 1 ' by Mr. J. S. Fletcher (Grey Lynn), that the Government consider the immediate establishment of a rest home in Hauraki Gulf as a memorial to Sir Joseph Ward is a further move toward an end long awaited and desperately needed in Auckland. Sir Joseph’s Rest Homes Act. which he first announced in Auckland, is a valuable piece of social legislation which cannot be too soon put into effect.

The purpose of the rest home is to provide a refuge for unfortunate old men and women for whom there can at present be no shelter beyond the gaol or the mental hospital. The gaol, particularly, is crowded with friendless wanderers who have been arrested for vagrancy, in many cases to save them from the possibility of death by exposure on the streets. They are people who wander away from any shelter that can be offered them by charitable organisations and become known as ‘‘half-way cases.” This unfortunate section of the community is one of the biggest and most pressing, problems of the police and justice departments today. Gaol is obviously not the right place for forlorn derelicts whose only crime is a preference for sleeping in parks rather than giving up the shreds of independence left them. Nor is the mental hospital a more suitable home for them. Many of them are mentally unbalanced, but not to such an extent that absolute segregation . is necessary. Perhaps the most enthusiastic sponsor of the rest homes scheme is Mr. F. K. Hunt, S.M. The problem of disposing of the human gleanings from the City streets is always before him and the imposition of gaol terms as a last resort in such cases is frequently accompanied by a wistful remark from the magistrate that the establishment of the rest home will solve the problem of the harmless vagrant. It has always been Mr. Hunt’s idea that men and women sent to the rest home should be able to work to a certain extent on small allotments, as at Roto Roa, with the idea of making

the homes, to a degree, self-support-ing. The Hauraki Gulf is dotted with quiet islets, eminently suitable as refuges for the weary from the unsympathetic clamour of the City that has so long ignored them. Various suggestions have been made as to where the home should be built. Roto Roa is chiefly favoured, as the Salvation Army’s splendid organisation there, catering for inebriates, has well proved itself and it is considered that the inebriates’ home and the rest home could be run in conjunction. It is understood that Mr. Hunt and the Minister of Health, the Hon. A. J. Stallworthy, were invited to view Rakino as a possible site for the home. Nothing was done in the matter. The Minister took the view that, as there was an efficient kindred organisation running so smoothly at Roto Roa, it would be foolish to put the Government to the expense of erecting new buildings and launching a completely new scheme. There was a further suggestion that Brown’s Island might be a suitable site, but that, also, was not held to be as satisfactory as putting the rest home under the capable wing of the Salvation Army on Roto Roa. As Mr. Hunt has so often said, there will be no dearth of inmates for the home. They are roaming the City's streets between terms of three months’ gaol and waiting to die, uncared for and alone. When Mr. Stallworthy was last in Auckland he had no announcement lo make in regard to the home, but it is now understood that tentative negotiations are being conducted with the Salvation Army and there will be more heard of the scheme this session. M.P.W.