CAMBRIDGE HOUSLNG SOCIETY
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sin,— In view of the correspondence on slum conditions, and on the attempts through voluntary associations to supple- ment the work of the local authorities, it may be of interest to your readers to know what has been done by the Cambridge Housing Society.
With a share capital of £3,327, subscribed by about two hundred and fifty individuals, who have voting powers but receive no dividends, and loan stock amounting to £2,198 at 21 per cent. held by twenty subscribers, we have bought two freehold sites, each on the outskirts of the borough, and have built forty-five houses.
Each house has three bedrooms and a bathroom, a living room and kitchen. They are built of brick with tiled roofs, they have good gardens, good cupboards, and are lighted by electricity. The rents (exclusive of rates, which average 2s. 3d. a week) vary from 5s. to 7s. a week, being determined according to the number of dependent children. The tenants have been chosen from those families with young children who are living in overcrowded or insanitary houses, and who, for specific reasons, are unable to pay the rent of a cbuncil house.
In making this very difficult selection we have aimed at helping those who are making a brave fight against hard circumstances. We • intend to manage the property on Octavio. Hill lines, and we employ a lady rent collector trained in social service who, while giving a critical eye to the care of paint and drains, can also make suggestions as to the cutting-out of a child's frock or the boiling of a suet pudding.
On November 23rd, Captain Townroe is coming to unveil a tablet on our second site, an attractive group of houses built in pairs around a space of grass and silver birch trees, and we hope to make this an opportunity to increase public interest in our work and so to finance a third scheme. In our forty-five houses we have no less than two hundred and three children, and we think that in the two years of our existence as a public utility society we have achieved a satisfactory piece of work.
Our problems are, of course, altogether less baffling than those to be faced in a city, and the most sanguine among us cherish hopes of making slums in Cambridge a forgotten and shameful relic of the past.
It is right to record the cordial relations existing between ourselves and the Borough Council. By loan on mortgage, by subsidy, and by the willing co-operation of its officials, the local authority has recognized that such a voluntary association may do work that municipal bodies cannot undertake.—I am, Sir, &c.,
DOROTHY T. STEVENSON,
Hon. Sec. the Cambridge Housing Society. 90 Chesterton Road, Cambridge.
[We congratulate the Cambridge Housing Society on its excellent work. The community owes a debt of gratitude to these voluntary associations. Deeds, not words, appear to be their slogan. We do indeed hope that the slums of Cambridge will soon be a shameful relic of the past."— Ed. SPECTATOR.]
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