STATE HOUSES
MINISTER DEFENDS RENTING POLICY PRESENT AND PROSPECTIVE ACTIVITIES. NEEDS OF LARGE FAMILIES BEING STUDIED. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. The activities of the State Housing Department were reviewed in the House of Representatives yesterday by the Minister of Housing, Mr Armstrong, who also replied to a suggestion by lhe Leader of the Opposition, Mr Holland, that State tenants should be given the right to buy the homes in which they lived, and said that adoption of such a policy would spell disaster for thousands of the most needy people. “The Leader of the Opposition made a very dangerous statement,” Mr Armstrong said. He said that every citizen had the right to go to the State Advances Department and borrow to build for himself. “If that opportunity is open, why sell the home of somebody else over that person’s head?” the Minister asked. “And if the honourable gentleman is going to give them an opportunity of buying the State houses they are renting, on what terms would he do so?” Mr Armstrong added that State houses were more popular with people because they could not build homes for themselves al anything like the price the State was able to build in quantity. PROGRESS TO DATE. Since the inauguration of the housing scheme up to June 30, a total of 11,584 houses had been built and let, the Minister said. The total, including those under construction, was 14,263. but there were still 21,207 people on the waiting list, more than there were at the beginning. One of the reasons was that State houses were cheaper and more attractive than inferior dwellings occupied by many people. The number of houses built last year was 3966, he continued. The department was using the services of everybody it could, and using all the materials it could get. “We have enough land purchased to enable us to build 23,000 houses, and we are still getting land,” Mr Armstrong said. "While the war is on, we will use all the labour we can in preparing land so as to be in a position to employ after the war any returned soldier who knows enough about building. We will put him straight on the job. and I know no better job than building homes.” There were 6000 men engaged in building State homes 18 months ago, but these had been reduced to 4200 by enlistments. To date a total of £16,252.000 had been spent by the Housing Department, including the purchase of land years ahead. FAMILY ACCOMMODATION. “The Government had just decided to set up a committee representative of women's societies, social workers of various kinds and Government departments to go into the question of the accommodation of large families,” Mr Armstrong said, after referring to work done in building pensioners’ flats. He added that there was difficulty sometimes for people with large families but small incomes in meeting their rent, and the Government at present was converting some old but sound houses into good homes for these people, cheaper than it could build big enough houses for them. “More working people in New Zealand went bankrupt trying to buy their own homes than through anything else I know of,” he added. “Today the State Advances Corporation owns and rents 4680 houses that it previously sold on a table mortgage. Some of them it has sold two or three times over, and still owns them.” The Minister concluded by referring again to the proposal to sell State houses. He said that if the period of payment was made 35 years the payments would be too high. “They will go back to the moneylender by and by if you sell them,” he said. “Even if they were sold on a 60-year table it would be necessary tc* charge another 10s or 12s a week for CO years to someone for the privilege of his owning a house after he was dead.”
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Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 July 1941, Page 6
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655STATE HOUSES Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 July 1941, Page 6
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