Lara Meyer’s letter about renting empty houses makes good sense. I grew up in a street in Napier with only 12 houses and everyone knew their neighbours. There were two widows living alone in two houses, two senior couples in two houses, and eight were homes with families. If my memory is correct there was a total of 52 people living in the street, an average of 4.33 people per house.

According to the last Census there are now only 2.6 people for each dwelling