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RE-HOUSING.
Extensive war damage, the suspension of
Housing Act operations and the restriction on all but
essential house repairs have combined to produce an
acute shortage of houses which could be deemed to be in
all respects fit for human habitation, and this shortage
has been reflected in the number of housing applications
referred to the department by the London County Council,
the Council's Housing Manager and other authorities
on grounds of overcrowding, health and insanitary
conditions. The number of investigations undertaken
by the department was 1,263, and where sanitary defects
were found to exist every effort was made to secure
some amelioration of the conditions under which the
applicants wore living, notwithstanding the fact that
for the greater part of the year the department was
handicapped by having only flinty per cent of the
authorised establishment of sanitary inspectors.
In dealing with health cases, regard was had
to the necessary for ensuring that the limited amount
of accomodation likely to be available was allocated
to those families having the greatest need, but
nevertheless, in 149 cases, 101 for tuberculosis
and 48 for other medical reasons, It was considered
that relief could best be afforded by the removal of
the families to other premises, and accordingly
recommendations for preferential re-housing were
forwarded to the London County Council. 49 families
were re-housed by the London County Council on medical
grounds, of which 33 were by reason of tuberculosis in
the family, whilst the corresponding figures for Borough
Council re-housing were 19 and 6 respectively.
OVERCROWDING.
It is not yet possible to give accurate
figures regarding the extent of overcrowding in the
Borough owing to the many fluctuations in the population
which took place during the war years. At the end of
1938 the records showed 2,461 premises, occupied by
2,461 families consisting of 14,126 persons, to be
overcrowded, and in 1943 circular letters were sent to
occupiers of all overcrowded premises remaining on the
register as a result of which it was found that many
of the families had vacated the premises or that the
overcrowding had been temporarily abated by evacuation
and other causes. Since the end of the War, it has
boon possible to re-commence the keeping of the overcrowding
register and,after adjustments relating to
abatements and new overcrowded promises coming to the
knowledge of the department had been made to the residue
of the 1938 figures, it was found that at the end of
1946 the number of overcrowded promises was 877, and
that these were occupied by 976 families consisting
of 4,996 persons. During 1947, 266 new cases of overcrowding
were reported and 142 premises wore removed
from the register, leaving a total of 1,001 overcrowded
premises, 1,158 families and 5,662 persons.
It will be observed from the figures quoted
that overcrowding ha3 now taken a somewhat different
trend, for, whereas in 1938 each of the overcrowded premises
was occupied by one family, forty per cent of the
overcrowded dwellings found during 1947 were occupied
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