Chapter 10: Housing
Housing is the most important challenge which the community has to face in the social and economic field. The general background of Hong Kong's housing problem, and the importance which the Government attaches to the housing in adequate conditions of the Colony's 300,000 refugees and squatters still uncatered for by housing schemes, is discussed in the Review of the Year. Figures of refugee influx since the war will be found in the last section of the History Chapter, and additional background information is contained in the chapters on Population, Public Health, and Social Welfare.
In addition to the squatter population there is dense overcrowding throughout the tenements which make up a large part of Victoria and Kowloon. The legal minimum living space in the Colony is 35 sq. ft. per adult, but if this legal provision were enforced it is estimated that about another 350,000 people would have to be re-housed. The Colony thus has at least 650,000 people living in substandard conditions, and a population which in 1954 was rising by purely natural increase at a rate of 1,230 a week, and which is now rising at the rate of 1,360 a week.
As an attempt to meet this grave situation, the Govern- ment, in April 1954, created a Housing Authority, charged with the duty of providing accommodation for people living in over-crowded and unsatisfactory conditions. Under the provisions of the Housing Ordinance, No. 18 of 1954, the Authority consists of all members of the Urban Council, ex-officio, plus not more than three members appointed by the Governor. Only two such appointments have in fact so far been made.
The Authority functions as a commercial enterprise, and although rents will be kept as low as possible, they must be sufficient to cover expenditure. No subsidies, as such, are given, but Crown land is allocated at half the normal upset price, and Government loans are granted at a low rate of interest. In 1955 the rate for future schemes was