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A JOURNEY TO MAUD STREET
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Talking Politics JOURNEY TO MAUD STREET THE Labour M.P. had tuned in his car radio to the The Liberals had been debating one o’clock news. their conference in Southport. at Conhousing the Government’s demning housing performance, Mr Des Wilson, former director of Shelter, had said that, outside the economy, the number-one scandal in our society today was the subterranean world of the slum dweller and the insecure. The only way to beat the housing problem was surely to build and build until everyone had a home. Part of the housing problem was sitting in the M.P.’S back seat. From left to right, there were Mrs A., her 7-year-old daughter, solemn and erect, and her 4-year-old son, cheerfully slumped in the corner, unaware of what was happening. Mrs A. did not look like the typical homeless mum: in her skimpy sweater and abbreviated skirt she looked as though she’d just been auditioning (though probably unsuccessfully) for a pin-up spot in the Daily Mirror; which was why, no doubt, she hadn’t gone down all that well with the housing department. Also, though unable to cope with her present predicament, she was far from uneducated, and knew her way around: how many homeless mums, finding councillors couldn’t give them what they want, would ring their M.P. at the House of Commons and ask him to take up their case ? The M.P., in fact, wasn’t all that sympathetic to Mrs A., who had brought much of her troubles on herself. He suspected, rightly, that she wouldn’t like Maud Street very much; and if she did, Maud Street might not think much of her. Maud Street was near the football ground. Perhaps it had seen better days, though never prosperity: now it looked as though it had long since ceased to aspire to respectability. The house was better than some: if you closed your eyes to the damp patches on the walls, the squalor of the backyard outside, it was possible to suppose that, given native ability and a little to spend, it might have been improved to a level of relative decency. But it certainly wasn’t a place one would have wanted to live in oneself. As we expected, Mrs A. sighed when she saw it. " It isn’t the Ritz, Mrs A.," said the M.P., "but remember you’ve nowhere to go." She’d wanted a place with a bath: very well, this was the only available house in the borough with a bath, and if she didn’t want it, well, there were three others in the queue behind her. She didn’t want it. Or, at least, she wasn’t sure. She and her children departed-she was due for work at a club (what happened to the children wasn’t clear)-promising she’d decide and return the key if she didn’t want it. The M.P. headed off to the next suburb, where his opinion was sought about the stench from a neighbourhood drain. On the way there, we disconsolately exchanged opinions on the state of housing in the big towns. Mrs A. wasn’t, by any means, his most serious case, but it set him off examining the state of the borough’s housing as he’d discussed it earlier with the Housing A
Director. Take the waiting-lists for council housing, for instance: after years of progress, the numbers were climbing, the average wait for a house was double what it had been a year before, and getting worse. That was partly because of high house prices and mortgage interest rates, persuading people who a year or two ago would have been ripe for a move into owner occupation that they couldn’t now afford it: better to stay where they were-which meant one less council house for newcomers to the list. But not only that: as in most of the big cities, the building programme here was dwindling; it was desperately hard to get tenders within the cost yardsticks the Government permitted, especially with quickening demand inflating the cost of building. The Government, of course, repeatedly drew attention to the boom in improvement of houses: better to renovate, leave families in familiar circumstances, than tear down serviceable housing and drive people out to estates on the city fringes. All very well; but not enough, in a time of worsening shortage, to offset the disastrous fall in housing starts both in the private and still more in the public sector. Back in London, the papers were carrying reports of a speech by the Prime Minister. For every 100 washing-machines sold in 1970, he declared, 151 were sold in 1972. For every 100 colour televisions sold in 1970, 300 were sold in 1972. For every 100 dishwashers in 1970, there were 187 in 1972. For every 100 new cars, there were 143. These are claims any Prime Minister has a right to make, and Labour supporters who deplore such boasting about the candyfloss economy must reflect that Mr Wilson, when in office, used just the same tests. Yet a few columns away there were reports of a survey by the new Campaign for the Homeless and Rootless (Char), whose chairman is Mr David Ennals, Minister of State for Health and Social Security in the later years of the Wilson Government. The outlook for the single homeless, he said, was bleak. Three-quarters of 33 local authorities whose programmes they had surveyed (they included such great cities as Birmingham, Leeds, and Bristol) had made no specific provision for single homeless people in their 10-year social-services plans. The boroughs surveyed in London planned only 213 new beds between them - a total which the closure of just one hostel could easily cancel out. Housing, says the Environment Minister, Geoffrey Rippon, is his department’s top priority. The committee chairmen and the housing managers in the local authorities can be pardoned if they’re just a little sceptical about that. They see the building see that the figures falling: they steady decline in the of the national proportion gross product which Britain devotes to housing-a decline which set in under Labour-shows little sign of being arrested. " What worries me," said the M.p., morosely " crashing his way through the gears, is what happens to those kids. Carted about from place to place, with a succession of their mother’s fancy men: ten-toone that lad is a delinquent by the time he’s 12." Sir Keith Joseph had a term for it: he called it the DAVID McKIE. cycle ot deprivation.
Talking Politics JOURNEY TO MAUD STREET THE Labour M.P. had tuned in his car radio to the The Liberals had been debating one o’clock news. their conference in Southport. at Conhousing the Government’s demning housing performance, Mr Des Wilson, former director of Shelter, had said that, outside the economy, the number-one scandal in our society today was the subterranean world of the slum dweller and the insecure. The only way to beat the housing problem was surely to build and build until everyone had a home. Part of the housing problem was sitting in the M.P.’S back seat. From left to right, there were Mrs A., her 7-year-old daughter, solemn and erect, and her 4-year-old son, cheerfully slumped in the corner, unaware of what was happening. Mrs A. did not look like the typical homeless mum: in her skimpy sweater and abbreviated skirt she looked as though she’d just been auditioning (though probably unsuccessfully) for a pin-up spot in the Daily Mirror; which was why, no doubt, she hadn’t gone down all that well with the housing department. Also, though unable to cope with her present predicament, she was far from uneducated, and knew her way around: how many homeless mums, finding councillors couldn’t give them what they want, would ring their M.P. at the House of Commons and ask him to take up their case ? The M.P., in fact, wasn’t all that sympathetic to Mrs A., who had brought much of her troubles on herself. He suspected, rightly, that she wouldn’t like Maud Street very much; and if she did, Maud Street might not think much of her. Maud Street was near the football ground. Perhaps it had seen better days, though never prosperity: now it looked as though it had long since ceased to aspire to respectability. The house was better than some: if you closed your eyes to the damp patches on the walls, the squalor of the backyard outside, it was possible to suppose that, given native ability and a little to spend, it might have been improved to a level of relative decency. But it certainly wasn’t a place one would have wanted to live in oneself. As we expected, Mrs A. sighed when she saw it. " It isn’t the Ritz, Mrs A.," said the M.P., "but remember you’ve nowhere to go." She’d wanted a place with a bath: very well, this was the only available house in the borough with a bath, and if she didn’t want it, well, there were three others in the queue behind her. She didn’t want it. Or, at least, she wasn’t sure. She and her children departed-she was due for work at a club (what happened to the children wasn’t clear)-promising she’d decide and return the key if she didn’t want it. The M.P. headed off to the next suburb, where his opinion was sought about the stench from a neighbourhood drain. On the way there, we disconsolately exchanged opinions on the state of housing in the big towns. Mrs A. wasn’t, by any means, his most serious case, but it set him off examining the state of the borough’s housing as he’d discussed it earlier with the Housing A
Director. Take the waiting-lists for council housing, for instance: after years of progress, the numbers were climbing, the average wait for a house was double what it had been a year before, and getting worse. That was partly because of high house prices and mortgage interest rates, persuading people who a year or two ago would have been ripe for a move into owner occupation that they couldn’t now afford it: better to stay where they were-which meant one less council house for newcomers to the list. But not only that: as in most of the big cities, the building programme here was dwindling; it was desperately hard to get tenders within the cost yardsticks the Government permitted, especially with quickening demand inflating the cost of building. The Government, of course, repeatedly drew attention to the boom in improvement of houses: better to renovate, leave families in familiar circumstances, than tear down serviceable housing and drive people out to estates on the city fringes. All very well; but not enough, in a time of worsening shortage, to offset the disastrous fall in housing starts both in the private and still more in the public sector. Back in London, the papers were carrying reports of a speech by the Prime Minister. For every 100 washing-machines sold in 1970, he declared, 151 were sold in 1972. For every 100 colour televisions sold in 1970, 300 were sold in 1972. For every 100 dishwashers in 1970, there were 187 in 1972. For every 100 new cars, there were 143. These are claims any Prime Minister has a right to make, and Labour supporters who deplore such boasting about the candyfloss economy must reflect that Mr Wilson, when in office, used just the same tests. Yet a few columns away there were reports of a survey by the new Campaign for the Homeless and Rootless (Char), whose chairman is Mr David Ennals, Minister of State for Health and Social Security in the later years of the Wilson Government. The outlook for the single homeless, he said, was bleak. Three-quarters of 33 local authorities whose programmes they had surveyed (they included such great cities as Birmingham, Leeds, and Bristol) had made no specific provision for single homeless people in their 10-year social-services plans. The boroughs surveyed in London planned only 213 new beds between them - a total which the closure of just one hostel could easily cancel out. Housing, says the Environment Minister, Geoffrey Rippon, is his department’s top priority. The committee chairmen and the housing managers in the local authorities can be pardoned if they’re just a little sceptical about that. They see the building see that the figures falling: they steady decline in the of the national proportion gross product which Britain devotes to housing-a decline which set in under Labour-shows little sign of being arrested. " What worries me," said the M.p., morosely " crashing his way through the gears, is what happens to those kids. Carted about from place to place, with a succession of their mother’s fancy men: ten-toone that lad is a delinquent by the time he’s 12." Sir Keith Joseph had a term for it: he called it the DAVID McKIE. cycle ot deprivation.