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54
Housing.
Housing conditions are improving as a result of the policy of
the Council, which is to re-house those people whose houses have
been closed as unfit, or found to be overcrowded. Up to the end. of
the year the Council have built in all 667 houses for letting purposes.
At the same time, rapid progress has been made with building
houses for sale, the total number purchased during the year under
the Small Dwellings Acquisition Act was 458, and the total amount
of loans under the Small Dwellings Acquisition Act up to the end
of 1930 was £2,902,016.
Despite a slight easing of the problem, there is still great difficulty
with regard to accommodation in the case of a family with
small children.
A point that seems to arise from the necessity of purchasing
a house in order to find accommodation, is that people are purchasing
houses, the weekly re-payments of which are far beyond the
limit which their means justify. One comes across cases where
the amount of the re-payments, which of course stand in the place
of rent, are as high as 40 per cent. of the total earnings. What is
going to happen to these houses when repairs become necessary,
one scarcely likes to contemplate. All this is bad enough where
the occupier is in regular work, but one repeatedly comes across
cases where, after having entered into obligations of this kind, work
fails, and then the plight of these harassed people vainly endeavouring
to make the ever-widening ends meet is deplorable.
Again I wish to draw attention to the question of Van Dwellers.
The profits on pieces of land let to these people is such that
in the absence of adequate powers by the Local Authority, no district
can be free from what is often—as a result of the habits of
the people—an intolerable nuisance. Year by year the class of
Van Dweller is growing owing to the housing shortage, being recruited
from a different class altogether from the original van
dweller, some of whom are maintaining their respectability and