3.
Christmas Cand.
(d)
The preliminary returns for the 1971 Census of the marine population, which took place in January, indicate a total of about 80,000 people living on boats in the waters of the Colony. This figure is considerably less than previous estimates, which were about 103,000. But by no means all of the floating population can be classed as "boat squatters"; this term is used to denote people living in derelict boats on or near the foreshore or in typhoon shelters, and the Housing Board estimates that there are only 22,000 of them (17,000 in the urgan areas and 5,000 - 6,000 in the New Territories). These figures are additional to the figures usually quoted for squatters, which refer to squatters on land only. Never- theless the policy on the clearance of boat squatters is basically the same as that for squatters on land, that is that they are normally cleared and resited or resettled only where the area where they are living is required for development. However part of the 30,000 resettlement units proposed for non-development clear- ances is intended for Aldrich Bay a particularly bad area at Shau Kei Wan which contains a considerable proportion of boat squatters. The bulk of the floating population lives and works on board fishing junks and various types of harbour craft, and cannot be classed as squatters" in any sense of the term, nor is it Government policy to rehouse them systemati- cally. The sharp drop in the floating population indicated by the latest Census figures is brought about by changing patterns of life among our fisher folk and such things as the mechanisation of the fishing fleet.
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