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size of his family. It would therefore not seem unreasonable
that if a housing subsidy is to be paid it should be
used to relieve the rent of those most in need, that is, the
large family of small children.
It has been suggested that the housing shortage is mainly
due to the fact that accommodation is not used to the best
advantage, that too many three or four bedroomed houses are
tenanted by couples without children and that if only houses
and families could be redistributed according to need, the
shortage would disappear. Such a redistribution is impracticable
but the present demand for small accommodation is not
necessarily a true indication of the need. Since the war,
housing priority has been given, very properly, to the families
with most children and the small families now form the
majority of the applicants. There is a tendency in planning
housing programmes to increase the number of the smaller houses
and flats and it could well be that in a few years time
the lack of larger houses and flats would cause a good deal
of difficulty by reason of overcrowding.
The Council is not only concerned with the provision of
new houses and flats but with the maintenance of existing
houses. Nearly all the older dwelling houses in the Borough
of Poplar are privately owned and in practically all cases
the rents are controlled.
Almost all the older houses in Poplar are built in terraces,
most of them opening direct on to the footway, A fair
proportion of the houses are substantially built and must have
provided quite good accommodation according to the standards
of the 19th century, but few of them have baths or an adequate
hot water supply and many of them have no rear access so
that the dustbin must be brought through the house in order to
be emptied. In general the houses are badly arranged and the
only practicable method of improvement is by demolition and
redevelopment. This is necessarily a slow process and in the
meantime the aim is to ensure that the dwellings are maintained
up to a reasonable standard. In a number of cases the
owners of the property finding that the cost of repairs is
high in proportion to the value of the house, have applied
36.