establishing their eligibility for aid, the extent of their needs and the most appropriate form of aid to be given. The applicant if found eligible for aid, may collect his dry rations from two food distribution centres, one situated in Happy Valley, the other in Yau Ma Tei. Cash grants are paid in certain circumstances i.e. in cases of chornic illness or disablement from most District Offices and Family Services Centres or may be delivered to the applicant at his home.
64. Budgeted expenditure on public assistance for the year increased only slightly by $50,000 over the previous year to $4.75 million. The number of individuals and families who received public assistance increased by 4.3% to 7,317 compared with a figure of 7,017 for 1968.
65. As already mentioned in Chapter I, the Department is devising detailed plans for the implementation of an extended public assistance programme for needy families and it is anticipated that the new scheme would come into effect early in 1971.
66. The Principal Social Welfare Officer (Public Assistance) is also responsible for the administration of emergency relief which is provided for people made homeless in natural disasters, fires and similar occurrences. Emergency relief is mainly given in the form of hot meals which are cooked at and delivered from two large kitchens situated at Happy Valley and Hung Hom which can produce up to 110,000 meals a day. During the year, there were two big fires, one at Tai Hang Sai on 2nd December and the other at Tai Hang Tung on 19th December, in which over 7,000 persons were made homeless. Other disasters including 43 fires, 11 closures of dangerous buildings, 5 house collapses and 4 shipwrecks, 3 landslides and 1 typhoon, added another 5,574 persons to the number of persons given emergency assistance. Grants made from the Community Relief Trust Fund during the year to assist the victims in their rehabilitation amounted to $522,308.55.
67. In addition to the duties of administering public assistance and emergency relief the Principal Social Welfare Officer (Public Assistance) also assists the Director of Legal Aid by investigating the financial means of persons applying for legal aid. During the year his staff dealt with 1,856 of these applications.
REHABILITATION
68. In the field of rehabilitation the department continued to aim at providing the opportunity to disabled persons to become independent
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