View report page

387
faulty from the sanitary standpoint, ill-health results quite as much
from the acts or defaults of the tenants themselves as from the
faulty structure.
One is frequently impressed with the fact that the filthy
and insanitary conditions of many of the poorer-class homes result
from the neglect and default of the dirty tenants and from the misuse
and wanton destruction at their hands of the sanitary provisions
made by the landlord.
The tenant of insanitary dwellings is not always the innocent
victim of the landlord's neglect and rapacity, and I have long been
of opinion that additional powers in bye-laws are needed whereby
tenants themselves should be made more responsible for maintaining
cleanliness and the efficiency and proper use of sanitary provisions.
It is certain that no legislation and no practical measure of sanitary
inspection can serve to maintain a proper standard of sanitarypractice
in the intimate circumstances of the dwelling. But the
power suggested of penalising dirtiness and neglect on the part of
the tenant would achieve something in this direction, and it would
help towards the great remedy—education.
There is much present-day evidence of overcrowding in the
Borough. In some cases the occupants of the dwellings are occupying
beds in rooms which before the war were never used for sleeping
purposes, and in very many cases the number in the bedrooms which
were so used before the war is too great for healthy occupation,
although the low legal demands of cubic space may just be satisfied.
The shortage of housing accommodation explains this and justifies
it, and the only remedy is more houses.
As the Borough of Stoke Newington is so largely residential,
it may be argued that its contribution to the present-day housing
requirements need only be a very modest one. As a matter of fact,
it is not possible to provide many new houses in Stoke Newington
without the demolition of existing ones, for the Borough presents
available sites for only a very few dwellings. However, what is