Poverty and Inequality
1944-10 1944 1940s 29 pages 15 (3) Why do these conditions persist? Over million homes for the working classes were built between the wars with the aid of Exchequer subsidies. Why was so little impression made on the squalid conditions which so many people have to endure? The answer is : &mdas...
| Institution: | MCR - The Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick |
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| Language: | English English |
| Published: |
London : C. W. Publishing Ltd.
October 1944
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10796/364A3D37-81B7-4F65-8E1E-A6A0E139F74C http://hdl.handle.net/10796/C8E213F5-4887-4B19-BD2A-13FB63CEFB17 |
| Summary: | 1944-10
1944
1940s
29 pages
15 (3) Why do these conditions persist? Over million homes for the working classes were built between the wars with the aid of Exchequer subsidies. Why was so little impression made on the squalid conditions which so many people have to endure? The answer is : — (1) Our housing policy was inadequate. It failed to organise housing as a social service. The greater part of the building between the wars — 72 per cent. of it — was left in the hands of private enterprise. This was a mistake from two points of view : in the first place it is useless to expect private firms to provide homes for the working class, since, unless they are heavily subsidised, it does not pay them to do so. In the second place, the building industry, with its multitude of small firms, is so inefficiently organised that it did not either produce enough, or keep costs within reasonable bounds. Local authorities built 28 per cent. of the 4 million houses put up between the wars, and private enterprise with the subsidy built another 11 per cent.; in all 31 per cent. then were built for the working classes, which form 89 per cent. of the nation. (2) The rents of municipal houses were so high that it was not on the whole the slum-dweller who benefited. For a municipal, 3-bedroom, non-parlour house: Economic rent, exclusive of rates about 10/- p.w. Rates about 3/- p.w. Maximum subsidy now available about 3/- p.w. Therefore the inclusive rent is seldom below 8/- p.w. It was the workman earning a good wage who was able to move into the new houses. There was a certain amount of upgrading, because the slum-dwellers were then able, if they could afford it, to move into the house vacated by the new occupiers of municipal houses. Where they were moved compulsorily into new housing estates, the higher rental often resulted in a lower standard of diet, so that their condition was, if anything, worse than ever. Dr. McGonigle's survey of Stockton-on-Tees showed that the average rent in the poorest part of the town was 4/8. When its inhabitants were transferred to housing a estate, they had to pay an average rent of 9/-. A sliding scale of rents adopted by many authorities, eased but did not solve the problem. The proportion of income spent on rent is highest among the poorest classes. Mr. Rowntree found that the families below the poverty line (42/6 a week after paying rent) paid out nearly one-quarter of their total income in rent, and that their average rent was 8/7. (3) Many houses which should certainly be classified as slums escaped demolition, because local authorities could only condemn such houses as they had the means to replace. For the same reason much overcrowding has had to be tolerated ; indeed, whereas in England and Wales only 3.7 per cent. of privately owned houses were overcrowded, the figure for those owned by
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