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38
HOUSING.
There is considerable overcrowding in the district and I am
being repeatedly asked to see if I can provide accommodation for
cases who really urgently need it. There are many decent working
class families who have not the chance to save the necessary
deposit which would enable them to purchase a house. They have;
the necessary furniture, and the husband is in regular work, and
if they are in a position to rent a decent house they are the class of
people who can provide and keep a decent home for their children.
There are many such families at present living under conditions
which can only be described as intolerable. If something could be
done for the employees of the big firms, who are in regular work
and have been sufficiently long in the firm to be regarded as members
of the permanent staff, whereby the firm could under some kind
of State assistance advance the necessary deposit, deducting so
much a week from the wages until the deposit is wiped off, very
many of these cases could then be provided with houses, and would
be only too glad to avail themselves of some such scheme. In view
of the number of workers employed on the Railway and by the
London General Omnibus Company, I approached Lord Ashfield
some time ago to see if some such scheme could not be put into existence
to deal with his staff. He took the matter up, but so far
nothing definite seems to have been done. There must be provided
by some means or other housing accommodation for this class of
people who are unable to raise the necessary deposit. I have gone
into the wages of a large number of these people, and it would not
be right under the present circumstances to advise them to put by
anything very large out of their wages towards the deposit, as to do
so would inevitably mean the children going short to the detriment
of their health.
There is a great demand to my mind for some small tworoomed
tenements to provide accommodation for two particular
classes, the newly married, and the old folks. The old people do
not want a house which requires a lot of keeping up, and it is