reasonable standards. Over 21,000 premises were found to be pre-1903 premises so lacking in basic hygienic facilities as to constitute a danger to the health of the inhabitants. Over 7,000 premises, mainly in the central districts of Victoria, are in back-to-back houses of pre-1903 construction with wooden stairs-a constant fire risk.
12.
At the Committee's request a survey was carried out, into actual living conditions, by the Hong Kong University at Government expense. This survey covered 1,265,000 persons, consisting of 267,000 households, living in regular housing in the urban area. The position disclosed is one of gross overcrowding. The major proportion of the households have a family income of less than $300 a month, being unable to afford more than $60 a month for an inclusive rent, and inhabiting a living area less than 120 sq. ft. (that of a standard room in a multi-storey resettlement estate). 79% of all households share the accommodation they occupy, 95,000 households were living in cubicles, 43,000 in bed-spaces, 8,000 in cock-lofts, and 4,000 in verandahs. Only 20,400 households had accommodation which included a living room not used for sleeping. 56% of the premises were rent-controlled.
13. The Committee, in its report, recommended various measures aiming at the eventual provision of sufficient housing to ensure that each person has not less than 35 sq. ft. of habitable floor area. It was also pointed out that if all the existing regular domestic accommodation was shared equally amongst the present population, everyone would have less than 35 sq. ft., and additional accommodation for some 750,000 persons was required before all the existing urban population could be satisfactorily housed to the standard recommended. The Committee advocated a 10-year programme to achieve this aim, and other recommendations dealt with the development or redevelopment of land, the provision of communal facilities, and the co-ordination and direction of public housing activities. These recommendations are still under consideration by the Government. The salient facts which have emerged from the investigations of the Committee are that the problems of slum clearance, rehabilitation and redevelopment of slum property, and overspill, are so closely integrated that they can be regarded for all practical purposes as different aspects of one overall, critical problem.
14. World-wide-and well deserved-publicity has been given to Government's measures to deal with the problems created by squatters, who build rude huts of cardboard, sacking, old tin cans, or any other cheap, flimsy materials they can find, on hillsides, on rooftops, or even
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