View report page

43
SECTION 4,
HOUSING.
During the year 152 houses have been completed under
the Council's Housing Scheme at Charlton Park, and a further
16 at Pound Park. The total number of houses completed and
occupied under the Scheme is therefore 868, including 50 flats
situated in various parts of the Borough.. In addition the
Council has 31 hutments in Tunnel Avenue, East Greenwich.
The portion of the Charlton Park Estate which is being
developed by private enterprise is now rapidly reaching completion,
and at the end of the year there were 96 houses
completed and occupied.
Cases of overcrowding continue to come to the notice
of the Department and particulars of all acute cases are
represented to the Housing Committee in order that priority
may be given to such cases when the question of allocation
of houses comes before that Committee.
In my opinion the housing problem is indeed very far
from being solved at the present time, and I almost begin to
fear that its solution will not be reached within my time, for
the difficulties one meets in connection with this matter among
the very poorest classes are as great as ever. I hear that some
progressive Councils have actually allocated a certain percentage
of their new houses for the use of the families of tuberculous
patients and also a certain percentage of the houses for the
poorest of the poor, but in neither case were these houses fully
occupied for the simple reason that neither of this class of
person were able to pay the rent demanded.
We have a particularly unusiual case in Greenwich.
Certain houses were closed by the order of the stipendiary
magistrate as being definitely unfit for human occupation as far
back as the early part of 1921. The occupants of some of these
houses as time went on have been able to obtain alternative
accommodation, but those occupying one of the houses have been
unable to obtain such accommodation, although they have applied
both to this Council as also the London County Council, and
have been continually on the look out for other private accommodation.
Up to the present they have not succeeded in
obtaining any, and accordingly have been living rent free for
the whole of this period. The owner, of course, realises that