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122
HOUSING.
HOUSING CONDITIONS.
This section of the Report follows under the headings suggested by the Ministry
of Health.
1.—General Observations as to Housing Conditions.
Hitherto it has only been possible to carry out house-to-house inspection of
the streets and areas obviously requiring special attention, and the information
suggested by the Ministry could only be obtained by a house-to-house inspection
of the whole Borough. A certain amount of information has been obtained from
the district Sanitary Inspectors, in addition to that from the house-to-house
inspections. Approximately 1,500 houses are known to be more than 100 years
old, while about 22,000 houses are between 50 and 100 years old, and probably
about 4,000 houses in the Borough could be described as being of very poor
type, patched and worn, varying from houses that could be made fairly habitable
by the expenditure of far more money than owners are likely to be induced to
spend, to houses that could not be made decently habitable by any form of
reconstruction.
The housing of the Borough presents two problems, of which the most important
is overcrowding, and the other the condition of the houses themselves; but the
first of these reacts on the second, so that overcrowding makes it difficult to
keep houses up to a decent sanitary standard, while it becomes impossible to
close houses owing to the need for accommodation; but I must emphasise the
fact that overcrowding is by no means confined to any particular part or parts
of the Borough. The overcrowding of rooms may certainly be held responsible
for the dirty and verminous condition in which some houses are repeatedly found
by the Sanitary Inspectors. It is easy to appreciate the difficulty of maintaining
a standard of domestic cleanliness in over-populated apartments. This and other
circumstances connected with overcrowding provide the conditions which favour
the rapid multiplication of vermin.
Undoubtedly houses which are occupied by a large number of persons require
more frequent repair than those that are less crowded. As these repairs are
not always carried out efficiently, the rate of deterioration of the property is
accelerated.
2.—Sufficiency of Supply of Houses.
(a) Extent of shortage of houses available at reasonable rents, ami the measures
taken or contemplated to meet this shortage.
No more recent information than that provided by the Census of 1921 is
available as to how the housing accommodation in the area is occupied. The
following figures have been taken from the Census tables for that year:—
Number of families living three persons or more in single-room
tenements 1,059
Number of families living three persons or more per room in two-
room tenements 471
Number of families living three persons or more per room in three-
room tenements 233
Number of families living three persons or more per room in four-
room tenements 26
Total number of families living three persons or more per room 1,789
It is probably true to say that, irrespective of the size of the rooms, seventyfive
per cent. of these families were living in overcrowded apartments. The
Census returns for 1921 also stated that a population of 28,457 persons (equal