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110
HOUSING.
General.
Here towards the end of my report, I come to
the subject of housing. In a very real sense, it is
one of the fundamental questions of health. The
vital statistics of the population, the welfare of
mothers and young children, the incidence of infectious
diseases, the balance of income available
to obtain good food and the facilities for its proper
storage and cooking in the home, the general sanitary
condition of the home itself, all are affected by
the character of the housing of the people. How
unsatisfactory this is has been reported on in many
previous years.
OVERCROWDING.
An important aspect of the matter has been
very fully documented by the Overcrowding Survey
of the Borough recently carried out under the
Housing Act, 1935. This shows that 14.85 per cent.
of the families in the Borough are overcrowded,
according to the standards laid down in the Act.
The percentage quoted in this report in previous
years have related to persons (23.6 per cent, being
overcrowded in 1931) and it is probable that if the
family percentage were converted into terms of
population it would represent approximately 22 or
22.5 per cent. and thus shows a slight improvement
since 1931. It should be stated, however, that the
standards laid down in the Act are still very low and
while providing nominally for adequate air space and
sex segregation they involve the dual use of many
rooms for living and sleeping purposes. This note of
caution is necessary in computing the houses required
to accommodate the overcrowded population.
The survey figures show that the family overcrowding
figures vary from ward to ward as follows :
North 11.25% South 19.43%
East 11.57% West 17.92%