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244
HOUSING
Housing is inevitably tied to economics. Moreover, although
of major importance, it is only one of the many aspects of our
social structure, all of which are subject to and affected by the
same economic factors. It cannot, therefore, be resolved in isolation,
if resolved it can be. Inter alia, it must bear some relationship
to affluence, standards of living, education, population
mobility, leisure, etc., but above all it must concern itself with
the translation into practical terms the compassion aroused by
problems of the homeless, the distressed families, the unfit houses
and try to assuage the deep resentment engendered by the everincreasing
areas of dreary and dispiriting environments. In
seeking fully acceptable solutions, housing policies must extend to
both furnished and unfurnished accommodation.
Britain is one of the most densely populated countries in the
world with a housing problem serious enough to stimulate an
official investigation into one of its "black spots''—furnished
accommodation. Set up in 1969, the Francis Committee in its
Report on furnished accommodation concluded that in the stress
areas of our cities, where most of the small minority of greedy
and unscrupulous landlords are located, conditions can really be
deplorable. Nevertheless, in sheer practical terms such housing
does provide for tenants who, unable to fend for themselves,
would be homeless and a responsibility for the local authority
without it; these persons would include unmarried mothers,
unemployed immigrants, young married couples, etc. Human
nature being what it is we can be sure that controlled furnished
accommodation would lead to a "drying up" of this housing pool
with a consequent flooding of a local authority's provisions for the
"homeless". This in itself could precipitate a serious situation
whereby many people already patiently awaiting their turn on the
housing list, perhaps for a number of years, would see these
tenants of homeless accommodation housed before themselves. In
such circumstances one could not expect them to welcome any
sudden and drastic alteration in security of tenants in furnished
accommodation if it resulted in their own demotion in the housing
lists.
Originally, public authority housing was introduced to provide
what the private entrepreneur could not, i.e., subvented housing
for those who, for financial reasons, were unable to solve their
own accommodation problems. Housing needs today are so much
more varied and widely distributed throughout the social structure
that their solution becomes even more difficult. Indeed, many
local authorities are finding that forward progress and room for