29 NOVEMBER 1924, Page 7

EMERGENCY HOUSES

IPROMISED last week to give particulars of the way -I- in which, in my opinion, the Emergency House could be best employed. But, before I do that, let me say once more that what I arm endeavouring to do is to concentrate public opinion not so much on the general question of Housing as on that particular facet of it which we know as. the Slum Problem. The Slum Problem is different in kind from that of house shortage, though it is so closely linked with it. By a Slum I mean a place or a house that has been declared to be, or ought to be declared to be, " unfit for human habitation "—a place in which men, women, and children are injured not only physically, but morally and psychologically by living therein. In other words, I.am not dealing with merely uncomfort- able houses, or houses which are placed in bad positions or are badly designed, and so forth ; but houses of which the analogy is poisoned food or drink rather than a shortage of food and drink. In theory an over- crowded place is not necessarily a Slum. But as a rule overcrowding makes the situation poisonous for body and soul. On the other hand there are Slums which are unfit for human habitation,. though there is no special overcrowding. All the same, those deriving income from them are deriving it from the sale of a poisonous commodity. Taking as my definition of a Slum, " a. place or house the letting or selling of which involves the offence of trading in. a poisonous commodity," my, proposition is that in view of the very grave difficulties surrounding the immediate closing and demolition of a Slum, the Emergency House becomes a necessity.

If there is a terrible fire or an earthquake, by which hundreds of people are unhoused, the first thing you have to do is to put up tents. Xis the quickest way of getting people out of the wind and the rain. The next thing is to run up temporary houses of wood or any other avail- able material—to create, indeed, what might be called " hard-shelled tents." I propose to deal with a decision by a competent authority that a place is a Slum and not fit .for human habitation much in the same way as if the Slum- had been destroyed by a thunder- bolt or something else of the kind which the old lawyers called " the act of God." Needless to say, action on judicial or official decree of unfitness of -a human habi- tation is much easier than action after an emergency caused by fire, flood, or earthquake.

The moment one has adopted the principle of building Emergency Houses very rapidly and preventing people living in a Slum till it has been cleaned and repaired and made habitable, or else till other and better buildings have been put up, the following questions immediately arise : " What do you mean by Emergency Houses ? Who makes them ? Where are they to be found ? What should they be like ? How long will they take to put up ?" and, above all, "What will they cost ? " My reply is, " I do not know, because I make no profession to bean architect, or a builder, or to have any first-hand technical knowledge of the subject. But if I have the ignorance of a non-expert,. I, nevertheless, know how to find out the facts which have to be known. Therefore, I will proceed to give- answers to the questions set down above."

And here I may interpolate that. I have already had a large number of proposals of various kinds, many of them apparently very sound and ingenious, for putting up Emergency Houses. But these, though I say so with- out passing any reflection upon the proposalS made, are at present paper proposals and have not stood the test of being-called into physical being. To get to know what Aeally, can be done in the way of Emergency Houses, I propose to do what was done in the case of the Cheap Cottages Exhibition, organized by The County Gentleman, when it belonged to me, with the aid of the Spectator. There the problem was to find out what was the cheapest " good and habitable cottage " which could be built by a better and thriftier use of old materials, or by entirely new materials. I pointed out in my preliminary articles that the only way to reach the cheap cottage—i.e., a £150 cottage—was to put up a hundred or so and have them all carefully watched and reported upon by a competent Committee. Prizes were to be awarded for the best, but awarded, not for plans, but for cottages in being. The leading principle of the Exhibition was, " Let any man who says he can build a £150 Cottage come and put it up. Then we will let the experts view it and report their opinion as to the value of the building in helping to solve the housing problem."

I propose that an Exhibition of Emergency Houses should be organized on similar lines. Anybody who thinks he can build a suitable Emergency House—that is, a cheap house which can be produced in quantities and which can be erected in a day or two, granted the finished parts are assembled on the ground ; and finally, a house which, though it may not be permanent in character, will while it lasts be thoroughly sanitary and comfortable—i.e., a place in which self-respecting people can live—will have his opportunity. It would be madness to put up emergency slums in order to solve the slum problem. This means that a piece of ground. must be found somewhere within reasonable distance of London, to which tLe public can resort iu their thousands as they did to the Cheap Cottages Ex- hibition at the Garden City. When tLe ground has been found the men who want to show what they can do in the provision of Emergency Houses shall give their answers hi kind. As in the Cheap Cottages Ex- hibition, there should be a Clerk of the Works and his deputies, who would watch the buildings as they are going up and check the statements of the inventors and con- structors of the new houses as to cost. That is a very necessary precaution. Otherwise an enthusiast may say that he has erected, and genuinely think he has erected, an Emergency House for, say, £250 to £300, when in reality it has cost him a good deal more.

The Committee presiding over the Exhibition must also take great care over the time of erection, as great care as was taken about the costings. There must be an exact statement in the case of each house as to how long it took to erect, and, unless special circumstances are admitted by the Committee, no house should he allowed to compete for prizes, medals, or certificates which took more than a fortnight to erect.

Once again, the problem is to find an Emergency House. No one, of course, wants to see flimsy houses deliberately built. Though it is called all Emergency House, if a man can build a good, cheap, permanent house, say a house that will last thirty or forty years, he must clearly be encouraged to do so—given that his house is at the same time built rapidly and well.

Obviously the arrangements for such an Exhibition will take time and will want the support of people interested in the question. After the ground for the Exhibition has been procured a sum of some two or three thousand pounds will be needed. We shall therefore have to ask for subscriptions. The chief object of such subscriptions will be to give sonic kind of assurance or guarantee to the men who put up Emergency Houses " on exhibition " that they will not be heavily out of pocket by doing so. It will not be possible, of course, to buy all the houses, but if the Exhibition, as in the case of the Garden City, could be put in some place where houses arc wanted, there is not the slightest doubt that the Emergency Houscs would be sold or let. At the Carden City every cottage erected was at the dosing of the Exhibition immediately bought or let. Still, if the exhibitors believed that there was a risk of being told that they would have to take the houses down and put them up somewhere else they might shrink from exhibiting because of a probable loss. They would naturally like to feel that even if the worst came to the worst, they could not be out of pocket, or, at any rate, heavily out of pocket through the Exhibition.

Clearly these arrangements cannot be carried through in a hurry. Therefore I propose as follows. As soon as the Christmas holidays are over, I will en- deavour to find out where there is a possible ground. I shall then be able to report :- (1) Whether an Emergency House Exhibition is feasible under present conditions.

(2) Whethey the Spectator can undertake to organize it, or whether it could be more conveniently handled by an ad hoc body.

(3) Whether the Spectator is prepared to invite sub- scriptions from its readers to do what I am certain is not only a piece of good work, but a piece of indispensable work.

Someone, though it may not necessarily be myself or the Spectator, has, I feel sure, got to explore this problem of Emergency Houses. After all, though many English people would not, perhaps, like to see too much building in this form, one does know that all the world over weather-board and corrugated iron are used when quick housing is required and that they make, in fact, very good Emergency Houses. Also we have been informed this very week—see the Interim Report of the Depart- mental Committee which is inquiring into the use of new building materials—that Lord Weir has provedthat he can build excellent houses in steel at a moderate price. In all probability there are dozens of other inventions and schemes for providing good Emergency Houses at cheap rates which only want publicity to prove themselves real contributions to the problem of how to obtain what I will once again call the " hard-shelled tent."

J. ST. LOE STRACHEY.