View report page

111
Another feature of considerable public importance
is the overcrowding revealed in the L.C.C.
and Borough Council Estates. This varies from
5.17 per cent. in the recently built Besford House
tenements to 40.62 per cent. and 41.66 per cent.
of the Cambridge Heath and Vaughan estates
respectively. The Council estates as a whole show
substantially more overcrowding than the Borough
as a whole.
L.C.C. 19.75.
Borough Council 18.56.
I do not profess to be able to explain the reasons
for these figures. In previous reports however, I
have drawn attention to the fact that one of the great
difficulties in Bethnal Green housing, quite apart
from the problem of finding suitable sites, is that a
very large proportion of the population receives
such low wages as to be unable to rent sufficient
accommodation for its needs, even if it were available.
Every endeavour is made to see that the
families in municipal tenements are adequately
housed when they enter, but it is obvious that as
further children arrive, unless the family income is
also increased they are unable to afford more accommodation
and so become overcrowded.
There is a direct relation between the size of
family and the proportion of such families who are
overcrowded. In the three unit families (i.e., father
and mother and one child over ten or two children
under ten) there are only 4 per cent. overcrowded,
but the percentage rises to 21 per cent. for the five
unit family (i.e., father and mother and three children
over ten or six under ten) and to 49 per cent.
for the seven unit family (i.e., father and mother
and five children over ten or ten children under ten).
The majority of larger families were overcrowded.
This most difficult aspect of the housing problem
cannot be solved by any one measure. Birth control
can only reduce it in the future. Increased