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23
The Water Supply of Tenement Houses.
During 1917, the powers conferred by Section 78 of the L.C.C.
General Powers Act, 1907, have been exercised in regard to 27 houses,
making a total of 890 houses which have been dealt with in Hampstead
since the Act came into force.
HOUSING.
In view of the great and increasing importance of this subject,
the Council decided that a Housing Committee should be formed, and
of this Committee Mr. Councillor H. R. Smith was elected Chairman.
An endeavour has been made to ascertain what were the conditions
in 1918 under which the working classes were housed, and as a result of
the investigations then made the following facts and figures were
elucidated, and were presented to the Committee:—
Tenement houses, rooms over shops, and stables, etc. 910
Say average lettings 3 to each house equals 2,730 dwellings for 2,500
would be a safer estimate).
In addition to the above there are 923 assessments of dwelling
rooms which are rated as "small property" at a rateable value not
exceeding £20. This total of 923 includes Wells Buildings, Campden
Buildings, Albany Buildings, and such like big blocks of model dwellings,
each set of rooms being rated separately.
The approximate population in such houses occupied by persons of
the working classes is 28,000.
Assuming that all the population who are living more than two in
a room are overcrowding, then at least 5,547 people are living in an
overcrowded condition.
The so-called "working-class population" of the Borough being
roughly estimated at 30,000, then investigation appears to indicate that
the same conditions pertain as did in 1911, as the number of houses
with overcrowding in them equals approximately one fifth of the
number investigated.
This brings the following figures :—
Working-class .population 28,000
Number more than two per room, therefore overcrowded
5,547
Average number of families in a tenement house 3