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58
SECTION VII.—HOUSING.
Croydon has shared the difficulties experienced in other parts
of the country in regard to housing accommodation. While a considerable
number of small houses of the villa type are being built
in various parts of the Borough, these are almost without exception
only for sale on completion, at prices far beyond the means of
the poorer sections of the community.
It is the rule rather than the exception for the poorer class of
house to be occupied by two or more families. It is extremely
common also to find that the larger houses, originally occupied by
separate families of the middle class, are now divided more or less
completely into series of flats, each occupied by a separate family.
The degree of overcrowding cannot be measured with any
accuracy, nor can any index be given of the extent
to which overcrowding affects the happiness and the moral
as well as the physical welfare of its victims. During
the course of systematic house-to-house inspection of 1,962
consecutive houses of the working classes between September,
1923, and April, 1924, 140, or 7.1 per cent., were found to
contain one or more overcrowded rooms. The standard of overcrowding
was on the basis of a minimum of 360 cub. ft. floor
space in sleeping rooms for persons over 10 years of age, or 400
cub. ft. where the room is both a living and a sleeping room ; and
200 cub. ft. per person under 10—this being the standard fixed in
the local bye-laws for houses let in lodgings. 261 families occupied
these 140 houses, and 172, or 65.9 per cent. of these families living
in overcrowded houses, were found to be overcrowded. In 23 of the
140 houses it was found possible to abate the overcrowding without
producing corresponding overcrowding elsewhere.