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39
Report of the Welfare Officer (Miss I. O. D. Harrison, S.S.D.)
The year 1962 has undoubtedly been the most interesting and
eventful since I took up my appointment with the Council in 1959.
This of course was largely due to the introduction of the hotly
debated Commonwealth Immigrants Bill, and the events preceding
and following it.
We still have no accqrate figures of newcomers in the Borough
and, of course when we have the results of the 1961 Census they
will show only the situation that existed at that time. Preliminary
figures that have been published, however, do tell us that Paddington
still has the highest density of all London Boroughs and the highest
percentage of ratio of people to a room.
During the first part of the year there was an explosive increase
in the number of Commonwealth immigrants arriving in the Borough
which meant that the number of problems brought to me increased
enormously and became even more varied and complex.
The influx was caused by a desire to get into the country before
the restrictions of the Bill were applied. This had unfortunate, and
sometimes even tragic repercussions, because while better educated
and more skilled people did not need to panic because the Bill would
not for them present such serious obstacles, people with fewer skills
and lower education attainment were arriving, not having carefully
examined the problems of uprooting themselves and having made
hasty decisions only to find themselves in distressing situations when
they arrived.
Among these people were many, particularly from the less
developed areas, who were completely bewildered by the complex
society in which they found themselves, and in which they were
expected to compete. I was frequently most impressed and even
moved by the courage and determination with which many of them
faced up to apparently insuperable difficulties.
The problems besetting many such people were particularly
acute because they had no financial cushion which allowed them
even a brief period in which to become accustomed to their new
surroundings before they were able to look for suitable work. The
employment situation in the areas receiving the bulge quite naturally,
deteriorated and suitable work became hard to come by. The
already serious housing shortage was further aggravated by this
situation. The newly arrived people desperately needed accommodation
and had not yet had the opportunity to recognise the sharp
practice and exploitation which was rife in respect of housing.
The situation in some areas was quite shocking. Unscrupulous
landlords were perpetually evicting unprotected tenants to take
in new ones who they could fleece even further and as a result there
were people constantly on the move and seeking somewhere to live.
The newcomer has a variety of difficulties to surmount, more
particularly if he is coloured, but the overwhelming majority of
problems stem from shortage of accommodation and the consequential
victimisation and exploitation.