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37
HOUSING.
It is gratifying to be able to report that during the year
considerable progress has again been made through the administration
of the chief provisions of the Housing Act, 1930.
The first programme which aimed at the demolition of 104
unfit dwellings, has been practically completed during the year, and
by the time this report is ready for issue, all the new houses and
flats to rehouse the families displaced, will have been completed
and the unfit houses demolished.
The transference of the families from the old slum conditions
to the new Council dwellings provided under the Act has been
carried out with care and deliberation, and it is not too much to
say that general appreciation and gratitude has been shown by the
tenants, many of whom, for the first time have a real opportunity
to make good, and to appreciate their responsibilities as tenants.
The new Council Dwellings—houses and flats—with their
splendid up-to-date appearance, lay-out, and modern planning—
embracing all those hygienic principles and conditions which have
been desired by the housing reformers—offer to many who have
lived under overcrowded and insanitary conditions for many years,
through their inability to find improved housing conditions, an
entirely new outlook on life—and under very exceptional terms
regarding the rent charged for such accommodation. This has
been made possible only by the subsidies provided by the State and
Local Authority, but it is a practical and much needed effort to
provide good new housing accommodation for the working classes
at rents they can afford to pay.
Under such improved environmental conditions which the new
dwellings provide, it is not too much to say that the benefits which
must result by the provision of such good housing accommodation
will prove inestimable.
It promotes a feeling of freedom to tenants which many of
them have not hitherto enjoyed, and this results in happiness and