RENT REBATES
[To the Editor of the. SPECTATOR.]
Townroe's letter, published in the Spectator of February 18th, may mislead your readers into believing that I advocate the immediate application. of the Kensington Housing Trust's rebate system to the entire population now housed on the estates of the London County Council and the Metropolitan Borough Councils. Actually,. all that I suggest is that this rebate system- should be temporarily and experi- mentally adopted in respect of any blocks of municipal dwellings that may be erected in London in the next few years.
The rent rebate systems in force in the three estates mentioned in Mr. Townroe's last paragraph have not the remotest resemblance to the Kensington system ; and there is no reason to believe that the •-• insuperable administrative difficulties" experienced there according to his penultimate paragraph wooll be experienced under the Kensington system. Nor can I believe that there would be any real difficulty in finding honorary workers with administrative experience to undertake selection of tenants and assessment of rebates for all houses likely to be built by London local authorities in the near future. On my own experience I would say that a sub- committee of two or three would easily do this work for forty new dwellings per week, once the prescribed forms of applica- tion had been properly filled in and the referencing work such as is now done by the L.C.C. staff had been completed. As for tenants' objections, these in my experience are readily withdrawn, if met by careful and sympathetic explanations.
The Kensington rebate system is only one of a series of correlated changes of housing policy which I have suggested with the object of bringing suitable_ accommodation within the reach of the poorer working-class families. It is an emergency measure, to meet an admitted crisis ; and it could easily be suspended_ or abandoned after the crisis has passed. Under present housing policies municipal authorities, however willing, are unable to rescue these poorer families from the grievously overcrowded. and insanitary conditions in which they now seem to be condemned' to remain for an indefinite period. My suggestions bare been set out in a note which I am sending to the- Minister of Health and the- London County Council, and which. I will gladly show to anyone genuinely interested in the London. housing problem.—I am, Sir,. &c.,
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