TO-DAY'S PROBLEM

Taranaki Daily News, 26 June 1920, Page 5

TO-DAY'S PROBLEM

HOUSING THE PEOPLE. CONDITIONS IN NEW PLYMOUTH. ) DEPLORABLE STATE OF AFFAIRS. e Where and how to live Sb the gm.t e problem facing many people in New Plye mouth to-day. r Remarkable revelations of the appallt ing conditions existing in regai'd to overs crowding were made by the Mayor (Mr. a .las. Clarke) at the last meeting of the e Borough Council, and a Daily News rep- . resentative, who has made careful and i exhaustive enquiries into the position, . has found: ' That there is a very pronounced shortage of dwellings in New PlyD mouth, 1 That these conditions have led to " grave overcrowding, which is imperilir ing the health of the community. That the town is developing condi- * tions approaching slums which should not be permitted in a town of the 8 nature of New Plymouth. e That a large, proportion of the houses c contain two or more families, all shars ing the same cooking conveniences. '< That a pernicious form of profiteere ing has been brought into existence — Y that of owners and occupier* of house* charging exorbitant rents for apart- * ments. That conditions are becoming worse 8 instead of better. That unless some action is taken by * the authorities at once the fuluro t prosperity of the town will be serious c ly retarded. t THE APARTMENT "HOMES." One half of the people of New Plyt mouth do not know how the other half . live, and apparently they do not care—--1 this was the conclusion which the Daily T News representative came to after he hid j concluded his inquiries Those people with homes of their own where they have r every comfort and convenience will no . doubt find it hard to realise the awful r conditions of that unfortunate section of 3 the people who, owing to a combination f of circumstances, are forced to live ; n apartments, with in many cases rapp- ; ioua landladies constantly terrorising '. them for more.and more rent. Such 3 "homes," if they may be termed homes, are robbed of all the comfort and tho freedom which one naturally associates with a home, and life to the luckless individuals becomes a mere existence. That these conditions should exist in New Plymouth is unfortunately true, and, in a very large measure,_ tho present state of affairs is traceable to the abnormal increase in the population during the past few years. What the present population of New Plymouth is no i one really knows, but it is quite certain i that it is double what is was eight or [ nine years ago. The plain fact is that * the number of new dwellings erected . has for several years been very much below requirements, and instead of catch- . ing up on the shortage, the position is i. slowly becoming worse, owing to the , large influx of people to the town. WHAT IS THE REMEDY? What, then, is the remedy? The problem is ouo which is extremely difficult to solve. The shortage of building mater--1 ials is preventing more houses from being erected; the erection of flats' would be too costly and take too long; and canvas dwellings are unsuitable owing to the climatic conditions. It is a problem which requires much care and thought. If there was not such urgent need for action, the responsibility of housing the people could be placed upon the State with a demand that the Government itself undertake the erection of standardised dwellings all over the Dominion. But to wait for the State to take such action as this would probably mean waiting a long time, and meanwhile a considerable section of the community would have practically no escape from their deplorable living conditions. Whatever action is to be taken should be taken immediately, because the mattei is one of extreme urgency. TEMPORARY DWELLINGS. Around the outskirts of New Plymouth are ample open spaces whioh could be utilised for erecting temporary dwellings. The Borough Council, Harbor Board, ana other local bodies have reserves which could be used for this purpose. These temporary dwellings or hutments shonM consist of two or more rooms with kitchen and wash-house, and could be made fairly comfortable. They should be built on a standardised plan, and erected as cheaply as possible, with the definite object of providing homes with the ordinary conveniences and comforts of life, as a measure of relief, until the shortage is made good. If this scheme was carried into effect, it might not be all that could be desired, but it would certainly be a great boon to the pejpte who at present are compelled to live in unsuitable apartments. ACTION BY BOROUGH COUNCIL. The Mayor stated yesterday that the Borough Council would no doubt take some action in an endeavor to relieve the present state of affairs. The borough engineer was devising a scheme whereby it was hoped to afford some measure of relief, but it was a very difficult problem. The Borough Council had been granted a loan of £HO,OQO for the erection of workers' dwellings, and when this was absorbed a further loan of £IO,OOO could be obtained. "In referring to the matter at the last j meeting of the Borough Council," added , the Mayor, "I did so with the object or } attracting attention to the present scan- ( daloiis state of affairs. Unfortunately ( there does not appear to be any remedy at hand, unless it is the erection of a j number of huts similar to the beach huts. ( Half of the population of New Plymouth , seems to be living in rooms, aad it is not ( good for the town that this should be so , People are coming to me every day and j asking if I can help them, but what can I do? Recently a man with a wife and j family was turned out on to the street , We were appealed to for assistance, and j the only place we could find for him was a the Fitzroy Hall. He's there now, and t we simply can't find another house for a Referring to the specific instance he had quoted at the Borough Council meet- J ing, the Mayor said that the conditions J of that family had since been improved. "But where we find cases of overcrowd' t ing, we are practically helpless. We can't find other places for the people to go to, and we can't <turn them on to the street. More houses will have to be found, and it ii j»bjelttt»ly wrong to allow, public [\

buildings to be erected while people _ living under such appalling condition*;, The Government can and must help in" this great problem." ', In reply to a question, the Mayor stated that 129 new houses were erected? in New Plymouth last year, which *t «) rough estimate should accommodate 560 people, but it was quite probable! that the population had increased con-, siderably more than that number in the same period. Not one house was de-' 1 stroyed by fire last year, added thfc Mayor, and several houses which had 1 been condemned years ago as being un- - fit for occupation, were allowed to re-" main, simply because the oi-eupantl could find nowhere else to Jive, n NGAMOTU BEACH HUTS. t , "Everyone of the beach huts, is occu- ,. pied," said Mr. E. Ellis, secretary of the r ; Ngamotn Beach Committee, in reply to a, ( question by the reporter. He added that ' the huts are practically all 3-roomed uiilined cottages, which were erected solely 1 for summer occupation, and arc quite '■ rnfit by use as permanent residences;. The huts had been erected for the ule of 0 summer visitors with families in order 1- to popularise the beach, and it was never intended that they should be used at' i- permanent dwellings. But the tornd mittee could not see the people stuck, e and had reluctantly decided to let the cottages all the year round. This meant a shutting out a number of summer yisi- . tors, but it could not be helped. Mr. Ellis urged that a public meeting .' should be called to discuss the problem,* _ It was obvious that the present state; of , affairs should not be allowed to continue . without an attempt being made to fiJßda remedy. He advocated the ereetio* of a large flats, on the English principle; not because he wanted to see fiats in a town. like New Plymouth, but because it seimfl ed the only way out of the difficulty.. CASES OF OVERCROWDING. ' ■ Mr. Day, chief inspector for. the Kew Plymouth Borough Council, stated that the shortage of houses had been acute j for three years, and large amount of building going on, tras " not becoming any better. It was quite > a common thing for him to find twtf of' three families and sometimes more, iiv 1 ing in one house. v ■ 8 In one case, said Mr. Day, the hoitte ' contains eight rooms, a little better'tnau ! ordinary rooms. Three rooms vera, oc--1 enpied by a man with his wife and three 1 children; two roomß by a man and his 1 wife and a boarder; two rooms by a ■ man, wife, and child; and the.otjjer room X by a single' man. The hourie contained i only the ordinary convenience* of ou i house. ■ .•» , > Another house of seven rooms wasoci cupied by three families with a total ■ of fifteen persons, and quite recently the owner had two young lady boarders, i making a total of 17. They ha* only , the usual conveniences of one bouse, !»• - proved a little by the addition of gas i stoves. * A hotfse of six small rooms had also . come under his notice. Two rooms were ) occupied by a single woman, one front i room was used t as a workroom by two . Women, and in the remaining three j rooms a man with a wife and child lived. [ "They had visions of keeping a boarder," t remarked Mr. Day, "but on my advice , they gave the idea up." , "When I come across these cases of ( overcrowding I cannot say to the people that they must go somewhere else, because there is nowhere el9e they can go. • The unfortunate people must lire somewhere. This is another phase of .the question. All over the place there are people who are under notice to quit, but 1 ' they simply cannot get out." Mr, Day remarked that the misfortunes of many of these people wer« due to their own fault." TJiey simply did not seem able to adapt themselves to any conditions and,would do very little to help themselves. Mr. Day made the novel suggestion that a certain area of land should be set aside, on which all building by-laws should be waived, in order tha,t people should be able to put up any sort oi "shack" to live in. It would probably be a crude "packing case settlement," but even that would be better than existing conditions, POVERTY IN NEW PLYMOUTH. . Commandant W. J. Baylis, of the Salvation Army, remarked that during the five months he had been in New Plymouth he had come across eome very bad cases of overcrowding. Overcrowding was so bad that the people did not know which way to move, particularly women with children. As showing the conditions under which some people are living, he Instanced one house which had been condemned as unfit for occupation five years ago when the rent charged was 3s a week. Now the occupants were paying lis a week, and the house had no range, and only an open fireplace in the front of the house. He had come across a fair amount of poverty in New Plymouth, and the living conditions in some of the homes he had visited were ex>fieedingly bod. The childrea were poorly clad and lacked good nourishing food. To him it seemed that the trouble was due to people crowding into the towns, and New Plymouth was as bad as any place he had beenfn." "The present state of affairs," added Commandant Baylis, "was not conducive to morality and prevented parents from retaining a proper control over their children. Living in crowded apartments • was responsible for an absence of home life and was bad for the community. If the people tried hard and made the best of the circumstance, he felt certain a big improvement would result, but such people were usually helpless and went out amT about the streets instead of trying to make a comfortable home. A PITIABLE CASE. ' T . In the old dilapidated ball the reporter found a family of eight living. The big building is practically in ruins, jaad thto' family, which includes six young ciild* ren, had to seek refuge within its walls? after being turned out of their name to! the street. • When the reporter called yesterßiy*. he found the place in ft very fcaky ton*" dition, with no lighting save' candles, and!; no sign of comfort. It is tfot-e, caJS of overcrowding, but on the surface Ms a case of hardship which should not exfitf ' in New Plymouth. Several instances, of profiteering laffijfe lords and landladies were quoted to tn« reporter. Here is one-. Bent prior to last Christmas, 12s «d per week, raised 1 at Christmas to 17s 6d a week, and now the landlord has raised ft to 80s a week,' and threatened the widow occupying the roomß with eviction if shfe does not pay. No improvements effected in the" meantime. The opinion was freely expressed by numbers of tenants spoken to,.that a public meeting should be called, and a J*ent Payers 5 League formed in W.v Plymouth, to protect the interest? of those who in many cases, cannot help themselves.