34
and lower-middle income groups.
30,000 will be
completed this year and probably as many next. This
is a most welcome contribution.
But members should
be under no illusion about the size of the problem
we face. This year we reckon the short-fall in self-
contained living accommodation to be over 200,000 units.
Allowing for about 300,000 more households by 1985,
and assuming that the public housing programme is
maintained at the level I have indicated, and that the
private sector continues to make a substantial
contribution, the short-fall should have been eliminated
by 1985 and well before that the problem as we have
known it will have been vastly reduced. However these
figures make the traditional assumption that 60% of all
one person and two person households will share
accommodation with others. In view of the trend
towards smaller households and the rising aspirations
of our rapidly evolving society I doubt if that assumption
will continue to hold true much longer.
There may,
therefore be a case for rolling forward the Housing
Programme after 1985, albeit at a less dramatic level,
and that therefore at least sites for such a programme
should be earmarked soon.
J