CHEERLESS AND LONELY

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 426, 6 May 1937, Page 5

CHEERLESS AND LONELY

OLD AGE PENSIONERS Auckland Conditions Auckland, May 6. A lonely life spent in fireless, ramshackle rooms in dilapidated houses is the lot of many of Auckland’s oldage pensioners. In .cheerless surroundings, which in some cases nmount to squalor, illnesses incidental to the declining years of life «are' borne with a philosophy of self-pre-Gervation in rooms which are often devoid of the comforts 1 which are regarded as necessary in modern life. It is in the antiquated houses of the thickly populated areas of Freeman’s Bay and Newton that many of the pensioners have their existence. To-day one octogenarian was seen to clamber up the -dark rickety stairs of a drab tenement house before reaching liis small room, a mere few' feet square. Others went to bare rooms without even the comfort of a carpet or a proper bed. An aged Maori and his wife found the consolation of a hio-me in a small unfurnished; room pungent with the smoke of .an insipid fire of dust and embers. In one corner a mattress and a few blankets were piled on the floor and in another lay the few utensils and supplies the'house possessed. Social workers regarded these as common conditions. Some, they said, were better and many were worse Although pensions have been raised to 22s 6d a week, payment of as much as 10s for a room leaves many men and women almost poverty-stricken after necessities are purchased and prohibits the use of firing, gas, or electricity. Glittering caaidlei lends are a common means of illumination. v We dare not complain,” a pensioner said when sanitary and’ building omissions were inspected in one house, “if we are thrown out where are we to go?”