Slums--Menace To Health...

By FRED WILMOT

TI ‘HE best thing about the housing situ-

ation in Vancouver is that it can’t get
much worse.”” Facetiousness? No. These
words, spoken with extreme bitterness, ex-
press the sentiments of citizens living in the
most depressed, rat-ridden slums in this city.

A trip along Powell Street, the water-
front area of the east end, False Creek, or
through any of the many other areas of
blighted housing that plague our city, is an
educational: and thought-provoking must
for anyone who believes that Wancouver’s
- housing crisis is not too bad. Here in a city,
the entrance-way from the west to Canada,
depressed, sleazy and  health-endangering
conditions exist for a large section of our
population.

On a Sunday afternoon, to really see just
how bad Vancouver’s housing situation is,
. we visited people in their homes, heard them
‘express their feelings, saw the conditions un-
der which they are forced to live, and were
able to understand just why landlords are
‘'among the most feared people in town.

We realized this more and more as we
spcke to people who live in slums, who hate
the very conditions under which they live,
but due to inaction on the part of all authori-
ties, are compelled to stay where they are.
People who should have the best, but must
be satisfied with the worst.

Our first stop was at a grey, rickety tene-
ment. “Bachelor Apartments,’ we were
told, is the official designation rendered by
the landlord, but regardless of any name it
could be called, it was an ugly, spindly-
~posted, ramshackle eyesore, with gaping
dirty windows facing onto Powell Street.
~ We knocked on one of the doors, and a man
who .spoke with a pronounced English ac-
. cent came to the door.
- _-°We told ‘him that we were from the
_Pacific Advocate and wondered if he would
permit us to draw a few sketches of the
interior of his apartment. He looked at us
rather vaguely, and mumbled that he didn’t
want to get into any trouble, and anyway
his mate was out and he wouldn’t like to do
anything without his mate knowing about
it. Behind him we could see a dirty, cal-
cimined wall on which a kerosene lamp had
left an oily, black stain. He mumbled more
indistinct regrets, and a faint odor of musti-
ness puffed at us as he closed the door. We.
walked away. I looked back and saw him
staring at us, still mumbling soundlessly
behind the window, partly obscured by a
tattered curtain. a

PA. HOUSING SUPPLEMENT—_JAN. 25, 1946

J knocked at the door.

E tried the second floor. As we came

up the outside staircase we spotted a
young man carrying a pail of water into a
door. Just as it slammed we knocked. He
opened the door and looked at us. We told
him that we were from the Pacific Advocate
doing a story on housing. and wondered if
he would help us by giving a few facts
about conditions in the tenement.

“Well, I'll tell you,” he said, “this place
ain't bad. You should see the joint I used
to live in up on Heatley. Of course, there
ain’t no running water here, and no electric
light, but...”

“You mean to tell me that it ain’t bad,
without electric light or water. Why don’t
you get the landlord to put them in.”

“Well, I'll tell you. I know the only way
that we'll get anything is to ask for it. But

*~T’m a single man, and all I use this place

’

for is to sleep in.’

“Too bad you couldn’t draw a mouse in
there,’ he said, and told us about mice eat-
ing butter and food left on the window sill.

“One of the bad things about this place
is that you have to walk down the verandah
to the bathroom to get water. There ain’t
any hot water either, you gotta heat it on
the stove. Of course, you need it all the
time anyway.’’ I suggested that we sketch
the basin which was on an apple box in
the corner. He agreed, and pointed out the
lamp on the wall, which Ruth included in
her sketch. ;

@

QC)vR next stop was a little line of shacks

at the corner of Raymur Avenue and
Cordova Street, dwarfed by a huge dump of
oil cans and baled aircraft aluminum. The
dump towered over the small line of houses
and looked as if they would topple into the
kitchens at any moment. Ruth suggested
that she sketch the exterior of the houses
with the dump behind them. As we stood
a streetcar rumbled over the viaduct which
loomed over the street, and a shunting en-
gine howled mournfully. I picked my way
through the garbage cans and mud in the
“front garden.’’ Two cute little red-headed
kids told me they lived “in that one,’ and
A pretty blonde wo-
man, restraining a little boy who was try-
ing to slip out through the open door into
the street, answered my knock.

I told her who I was and asked her if
she would like to help us in our campaign
for homes. She asked me to come in, and [I
stepped into a small, neat living room.

@® In every town and city, and
in many farm areas, there are
large numbers of families who
are badly housed. (A) It is
possible to calculate what’ these
families can afford to pay for
houses. It won’t be very differ-
ent to what they now pay for
their slums. (B) We can also cal-
culate what the policing, fire-
fighting, health services, welfare
efforts and tax defaulting for
the area are costing the com-
munity asa wholes (C) if we now
ealeulate what good, new housing
will cost, we shall find a differ-
ence between this cost and (A)
above. This is the gap to be
bridged by subsidies. (D) If we
do not provide these subsidies,
we, the public, will have to con-
tinue to bear the costs of (B)
above plus the incalculable social
cost of ever-mounting delinquen-
cy, distorted personalities, squa-
lor and blight.

—Canadian Affairs Monthly.

@ Present housing schemes
have shown that rapacious cor-

porations and contractors cannot

be trusted to carry out schemes
involving public money. The Do-
minion Housing scheme was
planned as a profitable outlet
for idle capital which accounts
for the high rates of interest
charged.
the Government introduce a plan
which would provide houses for
the people in the lower income
brackets at cost, and the cost in
terms of monthly payments
should not amount to more than
20 per cent of the buyer’s in-
come.

—Report.of the Housing Panel,
Industrial Reconstruction
and Social Development
Council, March, 1944.

@® Shortages of labor and ma-
terials are not blocking the hous-
ing program. The blocking is
being done by the government
itself. The bottleneck is a poli-
tical one and it will take a po-
litical campaign to break it.
—Tim Buck Radio Address.

@ It is the further opinion of
the Council that an adequaite
housing program would accom-
plish more than any other single
project to stimulate business ac-
tivity and employment.

—A. FP. Allison, President,
Citizens’ Rehabilitation
Council.

@® On the basis of the standard
definition of overcrowding, the
figure of 55,000 new or additional
units in the major cities is set as
the minimum essential to make
a contribution towards providing
doubled-up families with separ-
ate living quarters. A  corres-
ponding minimum allowance for
overcrowding in the smaller
cities and- towns is placed at. 20,-
000.

—Curtis Report on Housing

and Community .Planning.

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