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| June 2001 |
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Lily's contented with life
She talks to it constantly and Lily and Pretty Boy live a contented life at the City Council housing complex. Lily, 88, speaks highly of Council accommodation. She and her husband came to New Zealand from Luton, England, in 1962 to join two sons. She found work at Scotts Engineering looking after clocks on cooking stoves and became known around the country as the clock lady. In September 1963 Lily moved into 19 Coulter Street, Bromley, a two-bedroomed Council house. She loved it there and when the Council said it was to sell the housing complex she was ready to buy it. But the offer was withdrawn — so she lived on there as a Council tenant. She lived there for 38 years and, after an accident, she had a shower installed. "I loved the house". "It had a lovely garden where we grew all our own vegetables," Lily says. The house became too large when her husband died and so she moved to Angus Courts, Sydenham. Lily says she is happy there. "The people here are lovely and we are in a beautiful position for the shops and the church. What more can anyone want?" she says. She gets Meals on Wheels now. "You can say I am happy and contented and need nothing". "Everything is close at hand and we will get a supermarket around the corner soon," she says. The Council is the second biggest landlord in New Zealand with more than 2600 units of accommodation, ranging from studio apartments to four-bedroom units which are rented to people with limited cash assets, a proven housing need and to those with disabilities. Rents are kept to the minimum possible to allow the units to be self-supporting. Two new housing complexes will be officially opened in Waltham (to be known as the Tommy Taylor Courts) and at Hornby soon. Housing information is available from the Council's Housing Office, ground floor, Civic Offices Tuam Street. |
