of slums, near slums, and future slums. If you’re

sceptical, come along on a tour of one of the city’s
worst areas, that section lying between Main and Dunlevy
Streets, south of Hastings. It isn’t our only slum area—

not by a long shot! But it’s typical.

T ODAY in Vancouver we are suffering from a plague

The first thing you'll notice is that the area is teeming
with kids; the second, that the kids have no safe place to
play. Youll see them driving soapbox racers in and out
of speeding trafic: You'll see the smaller tots floating
make-believe boats in stagnant pools of sewage in vacant
lots. You'll see babies fighting off the flies that thrive in
a hundred garbage pails.

Walk up to some of the houses, up the rickety wooden
steps, knock on some doors, ask a few questions. Youll
meet the tired-looking woman who tells you that her family
of seven lives in a small, dingy, two-room shack. Six
people sleep in one room, and the seventh, a teen-age boy,
sleeps in the unventilated room that houses the toilet.

You'll meet the family of thirteen who occupy four
rooms with no plumbing facilities, the family of seven who
exist somehow in condemned quarters in a damp basement,
the grey-haired mother who watches over her three sick
children in an unheated attic. You'll come across a room-
ing-house where twenty-two Occupants share the single
toilet, and you'll be told that a family of nine live down-
Stairs in the cellar. "

e

QU’LL hear stories, too, of the veterans who have come

- back to a different kind of home-front war. There’s the
e€x-serviceman who lives with his wife and four children
in an earthen-floored cellar, and the veteran whose wife

and kids live in an abandoned tool shed while he takes re-

habilitation courses.

“Tt’s a funny thing,” he’ll tell you. “All this talk about
the psychological adjustments we returned men have to
make to civilian life. Cripes, if only I could get a roof
over my head nobody would have to worry about read-
justing me!”

Slums in Vancouver? - Yes, indeed. And down where
humanity is packed so tightly together everybody knows
what everybody else is having for supper, a hopeless mother
will tell you.

“lve got to get my kids away somehow, somewhere.
Lots of the neighbors are grand people, but the district is
full of bootleggers and brothels. My little girl is beginning
to ask why the lady next door sits outside in her kimono
ali afternoon amd has so many men visitors, and just yes-
terday a gang of older boys got my Jackie to steal a melon
from the corner grocer. ... Doesn't anybody care about
us? My kids are good kids. But what can I do? Where
can I go? God knows I’ve tried: . .” iz =

= (TABI

ST

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE it

“im newspaper editorials.

TATA

—
=>

LUMS aren’t statistics in a building inspector’s note-
book. Bad housing isn’t something that exists only
Blighted areas means more than

a term in an architects files.

But why? you ask. Surely nobody wants slums. Surely
even landlords have hearts!

Nobedy ever set to work to build slums intentionally,
it’s true. Even the world’s worst landlord never crept in
at dead of night to wreck havoc with the plumbing, tear
shingles of the roof, infest the cellar with rats and the
cupboards with roaches. No government official ever drew
up a bill directing that little children should be exposed
to tuberculosis and syphilis. But negligence, a false sense
of values, greed for profits, ignorance and apathy bring

-about the same result.

é

LUMS come into existence in many ways. Slums de-
velop when the population is too. great for the existing
supply of decent homes. Any sudden increase in popula-
tion brings about. a housing crisis. A depression which

U.UUFIU}°'_'TRFRITIZD~D - i=" "7" ii iioTcTocoCcoooKcccoicKnnKNcsnoSeaREaR

brings dispossessed immigrants fr
industries which attract workers W
modation, tremendous growth of if

I

ning of the war all play their part)

In ‘Vancouver, when the wa
housing problem intolerable, the ©

First empty houses in decen
up eagerly. Building contractors wi
Speculators bought up materials a
The black market followed introduc
lumber, nails and cement entered °

Working stiffs couldn’t pay ¢
didn’t have the necessary pull tod
enterprise was unable to make a ji
homes to rent within the means of)

Finally, the poor were forced
Old houses which had been mansie
forced the rich to move to the subi

But the old houses were hop le
sagging walls were shouldered bet
dustrial structures; their backyards

. In the opinion of others

@ The housing situation, already showing signs of
becoming a problem in 1939, became progressively
worse (during war years) until now, at the begin-

ning of 1946, it has assumed gigantic proportions.
& £12 prop
—Weliare Council of Greater Vancouver.

© Inadequate housing (was) the real problem during
the year, and in many cases the essental reason for

the mother having to go to work.
—Vancouver Day Nursery Association.

@ Slum dwellings in the congested area of any city

but the breeding grounds of delinquency.
—John Howard Society of B.C.

® There is always a reason for child neglect — poor

housing, illness, drunkenness, marital discord, are

some of the reasons.

are

—Children’s Aid Society.

@ The housing situation continues to be a source of

menace to health and morale.
—Victorian Order of Nurses.

. them to have their children wth th

community responsibility ...€

these conditions that make for j

quency, and possibly to depende

—Catholic Chik

@® We are deeply concerned over #
because we see problems develo
miserable living quarters .. .
not have happened if the comm
not merely any kind of shelter
housing accommedation where ~
may tlourish.- of

—Famil:

ULL TTT TTT TTT

ERIDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1946