36
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
slums are going to become slummier, more homes are going to be overcrowded with all that this means in social problems and ill health. The matter is as urgent now as it was when resettlement was first con- ceived in the early 1950s, though one would hope to have learned some lessons from the deficiencies of the slums erected then.
It is because of this critical need that I am proposing this motion. I believe that we ought to have a complete rethink, and that it is time to set up another Working Party to examine the situation in detail. I am proposing now that we discuss in the Standing Committee of the Whole Council, whether the time has not come to ask the Government to set up such a Working Party as we had in 1963, of which our present Senior Elected and Appointed Colleagues were Members.
I should not like to anticipate what this Working Party would decide, but perhaps I might throw out a few ideas today to show that I am thinking of something far beyond any suggestions made by the Housing Board, which, while stressing the need, does not seem to have realized how critical that need had become. I would like to suggest that we might consider other types of housing than those known to us at present on this Council.
The high rents are now affecting people in the middle income bracket, and others who do not qualify for low-cost housing or even Housing Authority housing. The Housing Board has shown that many living in the private sector had bought their houses or were purchasing them on loans. There may well be a case for introducing a new type of small flat to be sold out-right or in instalments over a period of ten years or so, to this type of person. This suggestion would not preclude the necessity to continue building low-cost housing for those unable to purchase.
(Mr. Raymond Y. K. KAN left at this point).
This suggestion is for the middle income group, but at the other end of the scale there are those living in hopeless conditions in huts, as we have been hearing this afternoon who will not be resettled in resettle- ment of low-cost housing within the foreseeable future, for the simple reason that it would be a physical impossibility to erect so many permanent-type houses within a short period of time. It would also include young couples who can no longer remain in their parents' resettlement rooms after marriage. It would be a great pity if, after taking their parents from the danger and hardship of living in huts, we were now to send the children back into the same squalor and hardship, simply because we do not have enough proper housing to offer them. And indeed we are already doing this: the second generation of resettle- ment tenants is already moving back into huts a sorry reflection on our much boosted "housing for the poor" schemes. Large numbers of