Center for Labor Education & Research, University of Hawaii - West Oahu: Honolulu Record Digitization Project

Honolulu Record, Volume 9 No. 18, Thursday, November 29, 1956 p. 2

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Rent Control Does Work, Staff Says But Board Decontrolling Too Fast

Honolulu's rent control might work better, the RECORD learned this week, if service personnel used it, instead of paying rents above the ceiling and saying nothing to the C-C rent control commission staff.

Though servicemen are not the only people in Honolulu who fear trouble with the landlord to such an extent that they prefer to pay excess rents rather than complain, they are among the top offenders.

"We cannot do anything about Infractions of rent control," said a member of the staff at City Hall, "unless the infractions are reported to us.''

The questions by the RECORD followed comments of eight Congressmen, reported in Wednesday's newspapers, on local housing available to servicemen and their families. One question attributed to the Congressmen was, "Why doesn't Hawaii's rent control work?"

The answer to that one, rent control personnel say, is that it does work. But pressure of Honolulu landlords, especially through the highly active Honolulu Property Owners' Assn., has caused de-control much more rapidly than some authorities think advisable. In this connection, pressure has been put heavily on the board of supervisors by landlords to abolish the rent control ordinance altogether. Though the board would never go along with that proposal, it has given in from time to time in the direction of decontrol.

Landlords Get Leniency

Democrats have been just about as willing as Republicans to relax controls, the present Democrat-dominated board being more lenient toward landlords than some others in the past.

Meantime, the housing shortage continues acute, as the Congressmen have noted and as has virtually every C-C agency concerned noted as well. Shortages have always been sharpest in the low cost housing range, but present shifts due to military personnel and improvement projects make the shortage continue through other ranges, as well.

Not long ago a local bank president said 16,000 new units will be needed to take care of Oahu's needs. The Congressmen, interestingly, estimate that although 5,000 new units are being constructed, 10,000 more are needed. News stories did not make clear whether they had in mind the needs, merely of military personnel, or of the civilian population of the island, as well.

It is also perhaps true that the Congressmen, asking why local control doesn't work, may have had reference to the much tighter type of rent control law generally enacted on the Mainnland. Those interested in housing problems hope the new board of supervisors may listen to the Congressmen and turn the trend toward decontrol ceilings.

p /> I do not say that at odd hours a patient must be given the regular hot dinner or supper. Few people would expect this.
 
But what is so complicated about opening and heating a can of soup, making some toast, or preparing instant coffee or tea? Why cannot a night nurse do these simple things after the kitchen to closed? Is it just too much trouble?

It is only common humanity to feed the hungry. If our hospitals are too big, too complex, too impersonal to do these small kindnesses for the sick, something is very wrong.