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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