REVIEW
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problem; one-storeyed development in resettlement areas could be regarded at best as a temporary palliative to reduce the menace of fire and disease. The planners now saw the main housing problem as the provision of multi-storey per- manent housing at low rental for probably not less than 100,000 families living in unhygienic and overcrowded con- ditions. They had not, however, arrived at the stage of in- cluding the squatter as such in this programme.
By the end of 1953 the various pilot schemes of the volun- tary housing societies had yielded much valuable infor- mation on the financial, administrative and management problems associated with low-cost housing. The fact had emerged early that, even with assistance in the provision of land and Government loans, building costs made it difficult to provide permanent housing at rentals which the poorer members of the community could afford to pay. The Govern- ment was engaged in drafting the legislation necessary to set up a Housing Authority, responsible for the provision and management of adequate housing for the poorer mem- bers of the community at minimum economic rentals, and it had been decided that this body should be financed by loans from the Colony's Development Fund and assisted by the grant of land on easy terms. It had also been decided that the Authority should not be the exclusive organization to deal with low-cost housing; Government welcomed all the help it could obtain, and it was hoped that the schemes of other organizations would be continued simultaneously, with the assistance of public funds, provided they were sound.
The disastrous fire which destroyed the squatter village of Shek Kip Mei on Christmas night, 1953, devastating 45 acres and rendering more than 50,000 people homeless, forced on the Government the necessity of bringing squatter resettle- ment policy and orthodox low-cost housing policy into align- ment. The numbers involved were so large, their need so urgent and the cost of temporary relief measures so great,