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32
TEMPORARY SHELTER.—PUBLIC HEALTH (LONDON)
ACT, 1891.
CLEANSING OF PERSONS ACT, 1897.
The question of providing a shelter for persons deprived of their
homes while they are undergoing disinfection, advanced a stage
further during this year. In the month of July, 1900, the Local
Government Board was asked by the local authority of Hackney to
give their consent to a loan being raised for the erection of a shelter,
a new disinfecting station and a caretaker's lodge. Before giving
consent, a local enquiry was held at the Hackney Town Hall, July
26th, by one of the Board's Medical Inspectors, when evidence for
the need of the accommodation was submitted to him, together with
plans of the proposed buildings and their estimated cost. In the
course of a few weeks the consent of the Board was given ; tenders
for the work were immediately obtained, and the erection of the
buildings begun. At the time of writing this report they are nearly
completed.
The shelter consists of four entirely separated and furnished
tenements of two rooms, with w.c. and bathroom to each. The
disinfecting station is of good size, the chamber receiving the infected
goods completely cut off from the chamber receiving the disinfected
articles. It is provided with two Alliot & Paton's improved Washington
Lyons high pressure steam disinfectors. In connection with the noninfected
chamber is a small laundry, fitted with a washing machine,
a hydro (both to be worked by means of an electric motor),
troughs, &c., and an ironing room fitted with electric heated irons ;
also a drying room. It was thought desirable to include in this
block shelter for the vans used in the transport of articles to and
from the station, a two-stalled stable and loose box for the horses
employed.
It is intended to provide the disinfecting station with steam from
the boilers of the dust destructor ; but to provide against the
contingency of a failure on the part of the destructor, an upright
boiler has been provided in connection with the disinfecting
apparatus.