DEMAND FOR HOUSES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 February 1939, Page 9

DEMAND FOR HOUSES

MOTHER LEAVES TWINS AT PARLIAMENT HOUSE AS MEANS OF IMPRESSING MINISTER. APPLICATIONS FAR AHEAD OF SUPPLY. (By I*aiegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON. This Day.

An unusual method of bringing her claim for housing accommodation to the notice of the authorities was adopted by a Wellington mother yesterday, when she temporarily abandoned at Parliament House a perambulator containing twins about six months old, The babies were left at the Bowen Street entrance to Parliament about 9.30 a.m. after the women had interviewed a member of the staff of the Minister of Housing, the Hon H. T. Armstrong. In the pram were two bottles of milk, a change of clothing, and pinned to the pram was a note to the Minister with instructions that the twins were to be given their bottles of milk at noon. Informed of what had happened on his arrival at Parliament Buildings about half an hour later, Dr ' McMillan, M.P. for Dunedin West, took possession of the pram and wheeled it through the corridors to the office of

the Minister. After a consultation it was decided to call in the assistance of the police matron and an officer of the Child Welfare Department. The mother was subsequently located and persuaded to return to the Minister’s office and take charge of her twins. She left the buildings with them in company with another small daughter, the police matron and the child welfare officer. Commenting on the woman’s action subsequently, Mr Armstrong said that the conditions in which she and her young children lived were not good, and it was evident that they had depressed her. In fact, it was quite plain from her action that her nervous health had been seriously affected. “I wish to goodness we could give a house to everyone who needs one,” said the Minister, “but we can only continue to allocate them as they are completed, in such a way as to give preference to the most needy cases.. There are hundreds of cases in Wellington of people living in worse conditions than those described in this case, and whose applications have been in longer—in some cases as long as three years. “This woman's application w.as lodg-

ed last September, and I would be lacking in my duty as Minister in Charge if I allowed my department to be stampeded into giving priority to a case, simply because a trick of this kind is played. We are in a position to provide houses for only a small percentage of the applicants in urgent need of them. It is evident in Wellington and Auckland that a State house is considered by far the best proposition, with the result that nearly everyone wants to transfer to a State house. We have not reached the stage when we can supply everybody.” Mi- Armstrong added that the woman's claim would be considered and a home would be supplied to her family when it was reasonably possible to do so, having regard to the claims of others.