The sunshine houses in Mitcham were designed at a time when special housing for tuberculosis patients was being built in several UK cities, and when there were many public schemes for rehousing poorer families. Houses with light and fresh air were seen as a remedy for health problems incubated in overcrowded city centre slums: "damp, dark dwellings whose windows the sun's rays have never penetrated and rarely reached by a draught of really pure air". The end of
World War I brought awareness of a national housing shortage and, in 1919, legislation to encourage house-building for poorer people (known as the "homes for heroes"
Act). In the 1920s many
city councils and other public bodies embarked on building projects. Along with voluntary associations, often supported by church leaders, they planned to provide healthy new housing. This was a continuation of late 19th century campaigns for better conditions for the urban poor - "Disease of the respiratory or breathing system is the natural scourge of the crowded quarters." – and a series of Acts of
Parliament on the "Housing of the Working Classes", starting in 1885. As in Sunshine Way, Mitcham, some inter-war housing was specifically designed for TB patients and their families.
Leeds built hundreds of sunshine houses in the 1930s, with 10% of their new housing having specially large, wide-opening windows to increase the flow of fresh air.
Sheffield,
Middlesbrough,
Salford and
Glasgow were other places which made specific housing provision for people with TB. In 2010,
Archive Global, a UK charity, commenced work on engaging residents in London about the role of housing/living conditions in the transmission of TB. ==References==