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Housing of the Working Classes—Statistics.
245
Housing Statistics—Memorandum by the Housing Manager (Mr. S. G. Burgess).
The new buildings completed and opened between 1st April, 1913, and 31st March, 1914, comprise
236 cottages, providing accommodation for 1,777 persons. Ten sheds and 8 shops were also provided
and 2-3 room cottage flats were converted to 2-2 room cottage flats. Up to 31st March, 1914, a total
of 6,420 tenements in block dwellings, and 3,326 cottages, or a total of 9,746 lettings, containing 27,949
rooms; and 1,874 cubicles in lodging houses, affording accommodation altogether for 57,362 persons,
had been provided and opened by the Council. The gross rent receivable for the year 1912-13 was
£218,925 17s. 10d., and for the year 1913-14, £226,294 11s. 3d., being an increase of £7,368 13s. 5d.
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 £13,623 6s. 6d., which, after
adding interest on cash balances (£1,012 5s. 2d.) and the difference between totals of debt charges on
cash and stock basis (£3,673 17s. 9d.), gives a total net surplus of £18,309 9s. 5d., or 8.06
per cent, of £227,100 13s. 9d., the gross rental for the year. The interest and sinking fund
charges amount to 49.00 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
£17,353 14s. 11d., and the total sum now set aside in this fund in respect of dwellings in occupation
amounts to £234,656 13s. -d. The expenditure for the management of the estates, including repairs,
rates and taxes, water, lighting, etc., amounts to 39.32 per cent, of the gross rental. During the year
the sum of £22,972 has been transferred to the repairs and renewals account, the unspent accumulations
on which, with the interest earned during the year (£1,978 3s. 6d.), now amount to £64,005 2s. 10d. The
total addition to the fund was 10.90 of the gross rental.
The loss of rent by empties (including the amounts lost at the opening of the new buildings—
236 lettings) is equivalent to 3.23 per cent, of the gross rental.
During the year 2,142 tenants left the dwellings. This is equivalent to 22 per cent, of the
total number of tenements, as compared with 26.09 per cent, in 1912-13. Of the 2,142 tenants who
removed, 184 tenants, or 8.59 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 1,958
tenants, or 91.41 per cent., gave notice to the Council and left to suit their own convenience.
A total of 6,469 applications for accommodation on the Council's estates (excluding lodging
houses) were dealt with, and 524 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. Of the 6,469
applications received, 2,423 or 37.45 per cent, were suited with accommodation.
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 £194 17s. 8d. or .09 per cent. (1s. 9d. 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, clearance and education schemes. The total number of displaced persons
rehoused to 31st March, 1914, is 1,756.
The usual annual enumeration of tenants of the Council's dwellings was taken in March, 1914,
and showed that the rooms (excluding lodging houses), available for letting, were actually occupied
by 36,004 persons, or an average of 1.31 persons per room. The birth rate for the year amounted to
23.92 per 1,000, and the death rate (exclusive of the three men's lodging houses) to 8.44 per 1,000.
As in previous years, a careful examination of the enumeration returns 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 32 or .33 per cent of the
total number of occupied 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.
A sum of £23,934 4s. 8d. (10.54 per cent, of the gross rental) has been spent in repairs to the
buildings during the year. These repairs include external painting at 30 blocks of tenements and
612 cottages and 156 entrance doors only, whitening the soffits and cleaning or painting walls of 140
staircases, comb graining and varnishing the woodwork of 1,733 tenements and cottages, and cleansing
repairs at 7,191 tenements and cottages. The whole of these repairs have been executed by direct
labour employed in the housing department.
During the year 26 small fires occurred in the dwellings. The damage was in every case slight
and the total cost of reinstatement, amounting to £43 5s. 6d., was covered by the Council's insurance
fund.