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8
Social Conditions.
The housing conditions in which the poorer population live do
not materially alter, although recent representations to the County
Council and to the Borough Council seem likely to lead in the
near future to the demolition of some of the oldest insanitary
dwellings in the district. There still remains almost untouched,
the great difficulty due to lack of self-contained tenements.
The subletting of each floor, and even room in some instances,
to a separate family in a house originally constructed for the use
of one family is the common practice in very many houses. There
are, however, exceptions to be found often in the least likely neighbourhoods,
both in small cottage property and in larger houses.
The tendency to let property in separate tenements without
making them self-contained is spreading, however, to areas where
five years ago one family to the house was the rule. Families with
children still find great difficulty in obtaining accommodation,
partly because these divided houses are not converted into selfcontained
tenements. Even as they are they are preferred, in many
instances, to the large blocks of Council dwellings where privacy
is reduced, the younger children on the higher storeys cannot be
so easily and frequently taken out, and where infectious diseases
are more easily disseminated, owing to the common entrance
and staircase. From inquiries it would seem not to be financially
economical for owners to carry out the necessary structural
alterations to subdivide the larger houses into self-contained flats,
since to the expected expenditure on the structure must be added
unforeseen requirements to comply with the building and drainage
bye-laws, the separate rating of each tenement, and liability to
increased income tax. Whatever the validity of the reasons adduced,
the number of houses which have been converted is small in
proportion to the number occupied by two or more families. It is
also improbable that the existing tenants could afford higher rents
than they now pay.
From the economic viewpoint the five-storey block dwelling
would seem now to have become the fixed standard for central
London into which, Procrustean fashion, families are obliged to
fit themselves. Regarded from the point of view of the wishes of
the families themselves, if separate houses are out of the question,
then a half-way compromise between them and the five-storey
block is preferable. Three-storey blocks of flats with separate
entrances to the ground floor dwellings, the staircase serving two