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Housing of the Working Classes—Statistics.
Housing Statistics.
Memorandum
by the
Housing
Manager.
The new buildings completed and opened between 1st April, 1910, and 31st March, 1911,
comprise 408 cottages, providing accommodation for 2,884 persons. Up to 31st March, 1911, a'
total of 6,428 tenements in block dwellings, and 2,519 cottages, or a total of 8,947 lettings, containing
25,006 rooms; and 1,849 cubicles in lodging houses, affording accommodation altogether for
51,856 persons, had been provided and opened by the Council. The gross rent receivable for the
year 1909-10 was £191,226 8s. 10d., and for the year 1910-11, £202,985 17s. Id., being an increase
of £11,759 8s. 3d.
The financial result of the year's working of all dwellings in occupation, after providing for
interest and sinking fund charges on the capital expended, is a surplus of £3,514 15s. 7d., which,
after adding interest on cash balances (£913 6s. 10d.,) gives a total net surplus of £4,428 2s. 5d., or
2.18 per cent, of £202,985 17s. Id., the gross rent receivable for the year. The interest and
sinking fund charges amount to 49.37 per cent, of the gross rental. The sinking fund, which will
redeem the capital expended on land and buildings within a period of 60 years, has been increased
during the year by £21,541 18s. 8d., and the total sum now set aside in this fund in respect of
dwellings in occupation amounts to £166,637 15s. 9d. The expenditure for the management of the
estates, including repairs, rates and taxes, water, lighting, etc., amounts to 39.09 per cent, of the
gross rental. During the year the sum of £19,553 (9.63 per cent.) has been transferred to the
repairs and renewals account, the unspent accumulations on which, with the interest earned during
the year (£1,710 lis.), now amount to £59,037 lis. 8d.
The loss of rent by empties (including the amounts lost at the opening of the new buildings
—408 lettings) is equivalent to 8.89 per cent, of the gross rental.
During the year 3,170 tenants left the dwellings. This is equivalent to 35 per cent, of the
total number of tenements, as compared with 37.4 per cent in 1909-10. Of the 3,170 tenants
who removed, 264 tenants, or 10.9 per cent, of the number, were given notice to quit by the
Council, either for non-payment of rent, disorderly conduct, or some other cause. The remaining
2,906 tenants, or 89 per cent., gave notice to the Council and left to suit their own convenience.
During the year, 5,394 applications for accommodation on the Council's estates (excluding
lodging houses) were dealt with, and 718 transfers were effected. These transfers are sometimes
to a different estate, owing to the tenant having changed his place of work, and sometimes to a
larger or smaller tenement on the same estate, owing to the increase or decrease of the tenant's
family.
A number of tenants who removed from the dwellings were in arrear with their rent, and
left without paying the amounts owing. Every effort has been made to recover these arrears on
vacation, but the amount of £263 2s. 8d. or .13 per cent. (2s. 7d. per £100) of the gross rental
has been included in the accounts as irrecoverable.
During the year the Council did not rehouse any persons who had been displaced by the
Council's improvement and clearance schemes. The total number of displaced persons rehoused
to 31st March, 1911, is 1,756.
The usual annual census of the Council's dwellings was taken in March, 1911,
and showed that the rooms (excluding lodging houses), available for letting, were
actually occupied by 30,976 persons, or an average of 1.24 persons per room. The birth rate for the
year amounted to 28.6 per 1,000, and the death rate (exclusive of the three men's lodging houses) to
10.2 per 1,000. As in previous years, a careful examination of the census return was made with a
view to the detection of cases of overcrowding. The maximum number of persons to be allowed in
any tenement in the Council's dwellings has been fixed by the Committee at two persons per room,
children up to the age of 5 being for this purpose reckoned as nil, and children between the ages of 5
and 10 as half an adult. This year the number of cases not complying with this standard was 50,
or .56 per cent, of the total number of tenements. The overcrowding is usually found to be due
to one or more children in the tenement having reached the age of 5 or 10 years, and so being
counted in accordance with the Council's scale. This overcrowding is usually remedied by the
removal of the family to a larger tenement in the dwellings.
During the year the sum of £14,505 7s. 6d. (7.14 per cent, of the gross rental) has been spent
in repairs to the buildings. These repairs include external painting at 15 blocks of dwellings
and 631 cottages and cottage flats, whitening the soffits and cleaning or painting walls
of 203 staircases, comb graining and varnishing the woodwork of 257 tenements, touching up,
graining and varnishing 102 tenements, and cleansing repairs at 6,434 tenements. The whole of
these repairs have been executed by direct labour employed in the housing department.
During the year 9 small fires occurred in the dwellings, 8 being in tenements in block
dwellings and 1 in a lodging house. The damage was in every case slight, and the total cost of
reinstatement. amonnting to £12 0s. 5d.. was covered bv the Council's insurance fund.
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