31. For the Estate staff intake days, and the following two or three weeks, are the most important of all; for it is during this initial period that the new settler must be weaned away from many of the deeply ingrained habits and concepts that pervade squatter areas. He is taught to make the best of the simple accommodation provided, and to forget his defeatist attitude towards dirt and disease. He is asked, for example, to buy a small covered dustbin, to make himself responsible for cleaning the public verandah outside his room, and to use only kerosene for cooking. He is advised to whitewash his room, he is told what form of partitioning has been found by experience to be most convenient and healthy, and it is made clear that he must not engage in any trade or handicraft which would be a nuisance or a danger to others. While the Estate staff were busy driving these lessons home to the new settlers, the Mobile Resettlement Unit was supervising demolition of the now vacant squatter structures in Sheung Li Uk. Most of these had been sold to salvage contractors who quickly set about the task of demolition. Within a few days only a carpet of rubble remained and another valuable site had been freed for permanent develop- ment.
32. The domestic squatters went through this procedure without any particular difficulty, but special attention had to be given to those who depended for their livelihood on shops and workshops. The department does not scruple to cause a squatter expense up to the limit which he can reasonably afford, but it does try to avoid putting a person or a family out of business. Retail shops are the easiest to re-establish since double ground floor rooms in the multi-storey buildings can easily be converted into shops of 240 sq. ft. Such rooms are offered to squatter shopkeepers at a higher rental of $100 a month and the majority of those eligible are glad to accept the offer.
33. Genuine cottage industries, such as rattan piece-work and embroidery, can be carried on in domestic rooms on the upper floors of multi-storey buildings but workshops are a more difficult problem. In December, 1955 it was decided to try the experiment of allowing certain types of workshops to be re-established in ground floor rooms and this experiment met
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