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45
The immediate effect of this has been to cause a
demand for better housing conditions, and this demand
has been accompanied by the power to pay for the
improvement. What is the result in effect? Families
that were content with one or two rooms now demand
three or four rooms or a whole house,and once the improved
accommodation is obtained, the Rent Restriction
Acts give security of tenure. Similarly, the family may
have taken in a lodger before, and one of the first signs
of prosperity has been the eviction of the lodger, too
often an intruder on the family privacy.
The mere diminution in population might lead an
observer to suppose that there could not be in the
Borough any shortage of houses, any shortage of houses
being usually accompanied as a social phenomenon by
overcrowding and an increased population; yet the
demand in the Borough for additional and better housing
accommodation is a very real and urgent one. This is
due, firstly, to the fact that during the war some families,
owing to the absence of male members on military service,
left their houses and were content with less accommodation.
In a few cases they left the Borough. On
the return of normal times they find their previous home
occupied by another family, and such families, although
occupying two or three rooms, would gladly move into
a house if such were ready and available. Secondly,
the better social conscience which, as mentioned above,
has evinced itself amongst tenement dwellers in the
demand for additional rooms, leads as well to the natural
demand for a self-contained house or flat.
There are an enormous number of Bethnal Green
residents now living in tenements who would gladly