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108
HOUSING ACT 1935—OVERCROWDING
SURVEY.
The Overcrowding Survey which was undertaken
under the provisions of the Housing Act 1935 Avas
completed during the early part of the year. A brief
report on the statistics obtained was submitted to
the Borough Council, and a fuller summary of the
information to the London County Council.
Too much reliance should not be placed on the
accuracy of the figures obtained, as it has since become
obvious that in many instances misleading
statements were made to the enumerators both as
to the numbers in family and as to the number of
rooms occupied. It is difficult to suggest what
induces people to make these false statements unless
it be fear of penal action on the part of the authorities
when overcrowding is discovered, or a desire
to be left alone in the old home surroundings, however
overcrowded or unsuitable they may be.
The returns obtained by the enumerators showed
that there were 26,093 families resident in the Borough
to whom the Survey referred. Of these, 3,875
families were living in overcrowded conditions and
19 in circumstances where the segregation of the
sexes as provided by the Act was not possible—a
total of 3,894 cases to be dealt with. In addition,
during the two years following the Survey a further
total of249 cases would become overcrowded by reason
of children attaining the age of 1 or 10 years and
therefore subject to a different classification. 147
of these cases had been added to the register by the
end of 1936. 30 other cases were discovered subsequent
to the Survey, which brought the known total
of" overcrowded cases to 4,071.
By the end of the year, this figure had been
reduced by 461 to 3,610. The following is a summary