Page:Lectures on Housing.djvu/15

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How Far it is Possible to Provide Satisfactory Houses for the Working Classes, at Rents which they can afford to pay.

By B. Seebohm Rowntree.


Let us, first, review very briefly the present conditions under which the working people of this country are housed. We may separate their houses into three divisions which, though it is impossible to draw a rigid line of demarcation between them, will be found helpful for purposes of classification. In the lowest division are houses which, though they may be found in isolation, or in small groups, are generally congested in slums—houses deficient in some or all of the following essential conditions: light, space, ventilation, warmth, dryness, and water supply. A house should fulfil the minimum standard of hygienic requirements in all these respects, but these houses fall very far short of it. Although