ENN =

PACIFIC TRIBUN

you

By Cynthia Carter

floors were warped and rotten,
plumbing was almost non-exist-
ant. Small families which needed
self-contained flats were huddled
together in draughty, high-ceil-
ings reoms without running
water.

The rats, indignant at the in-
trusion, refused to be evicted
and the roaches declared open
war.

And this was just the begin-
ning. Olq tool-sheds, garages.
leantos, cellars were being ad-
vertised as “attractive living
quarters.” Shacks w€re thrown
up in laneways, old stores were
reconverted, and landlords were
making a killing. Civic services
couldn’t keep up with the sud-
den demand.

Private enterprise, always tae
adequate, contented itself with
pbuilding luxury homes for the
rich and a few jerry-built, future
Slums for the working people.
There was no doubt about it.
‘The system’ had broken down
ence again.

ve was to be done 7
authorities didn’t know. They.
knew they were going to have
to answer the questions ae
voters were going to ask. Bu
they didn’t like to bur Te
feelings of the contractors 2
sociation by talking about low
rental public housing. =o eee
Taised the old, old cry, Wer
is the money coming from:

But this time, 2 few Pee
who bothered to look Be oe
facts had another question
them: “Where jis the money &°-
ing now?” : : —

Well, it turned out Bec ae

; goi a fo}
money’ was going
places it shouldn’t have nee
to go at all. One of the aes
costly jJuxuries the eee is
asked to finance, for insta ee
was the high cost of bad hea
in slum areas.
the amount of
money British Golumbia anne
to stamp out disease would L
new homes for 2,500 families-

— — PAGE 10

In one year,

ans living in these houses who
ment scales the prices down,

infant mortality in the area
between Burrard and Main
streets is 73 per thousand, as
compared with under 30 per
thousand in Shaughness Heights.
Costs of fire protection and
damage by fire in the slum
areas is many times that of
other areas, and charitable or-
fanizations groan over the ex-
penditures they must make
where bad housing is taking its
toll of life, health and morality.

ARD headed businessmen, toc

_are beginning to realize the
tremendous loss in real estate
taxes from properties of low as-
sessment value. Good housing,
in short, is good business!

This fact was very dramati-
cally demonstrated recently
when, in the city of Newark,
New. Jersey, a Housing Author-
ity was set up to tackle a prob-
lém similar to ours.

Bive low-rental housing pro-
jects were soon completed, and
to the’ amazement of all con-
cerned, Newark found that in

Yi

ene year the city was money-in-
the-bank to the tune of $148,-
809.

This sum included such sun-
ary items as savings of $22,000
in care and treatment of com-
Tunicable diseases, $16,409 sayv-
ings in fire department expen-
ditures and fire losses, and savy-
ings of $9,000 in fatal home ac-
cidents resulting from faulty
housing. conditions.

From the Newark tax office
came further proof of the
Scheme’s success, when exxperts

reported that while the city had
hitherto poured 45 percent of
its service costs into slums,
they received from slum areas
Gnly six percent of real estate
tax revenue. And alhtough its
slum area comprised only about
one-fifth of the city’s area, it
was responsible for 45 percent
of all major crimes, 55 percent
Of juvenile delinquency, 60 per-
cent of tuberculosis cases, and
385 percent of all fires.

MM MMMM MTT

#

Ts are some of the rea-

sons that Vancouver must
take action on its housing prob-
Jem. Germs can jump fences,
and epidemics which have their
beginnings in a city’s blighted
areas soon spread. All the dis-
eases of the slums, from tuber-
culosis to organized vice, prey
upon the rest of the city, taking
their toll in human life and de-
cency. \

Slums are bad business finan-
cially, and in the long run cost
more than housing projects. And
if something isn’t done at once,
the situation is going to get a
lot ‘worse before it gets any
better.

What can be done? Where do
we go from here?

Those are big questions. But
they can be answered. _ Other
cities, other countries, with far
less to work with than we have
in Yancouver and in Canada,
have solved their housing prob-
lems, in part if not fully.

Next week we will take a
look at what they have done,
examine their methods, and ask
eurselves if it can’t happen here.

f

This is the plan for the Central Mortgage and Housing Corpora-

tion’s NHA house-of-the-month for

November. “In this

month’s house, which is in the moderate cost field,’ states the
corporation, “the spacious living room, together with the connect-
ing porch, provides an excellent opportunity to enjoy the advan-
tages of both indoor and outdoor living.”” Thousands of Canadians,
crowded in small apartments, basement suites, shacks and garages,
have waited a long time “to enjoy the advantages of both indoor
and outdoor living,” and now, more than a year after the end of
« the war, they find themselves thwarted by shortages and high costs
of materials. While the big lumber companies make tremendous
profits, their savings and their hopes dwindle.

ee

|

And this —one of the government-owned houses on the Tait sub-division at Bridge-

pert, Lulu Island, is what some of the ‘more fortunate’ veterans have

been able to obtain—for a consideration ranging from $5,700 to $6,200. To the veter-
have been threatening to strike unless the govern-
the reality is far from the promise of decent postwar

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1946