40. At one time the most difficult problem to solve was that of combining families too small to be entitled to have a room to them- selves. This difficulty has now been largely overcome by having rooms of four different sizes in multi-storey buildings, but families of less than three persons and single persons are still a problem.
41. By the end of the first week most of the questions will have been answered and a great many personal problems will have been solved or alleviated. By the second week registration is usually complete and all white cards, birth certificates, identity cards, and other documents checked to ensure that no additions or substitutions have been made since screening took place. Each household is then required to produce a group photograph of all members of the family; when this is produced the head of household is then given his letter of authority to enter a particular resettlement estate or area. During the third week a nominal roll is prepared showing the composition of each household and this, together with all the group photographs, is forwarded to the estate staff one week before the move so that all rooms can be allocated in advance.
42. In the fourth week the move takes place. If the clearance is a large one as many as 1,000 persons may move in one day. Transport is provided both for the squatters themselves and for all their personal belongings. By this time they will have sold their structures to con- tractors for the demolition value of the materials; and within a few days of the move the clearance area will have been freed for permanent development.
CHAPTER IV
CLEARANCES DURING THE YEAR
43. The most important clearance during the year took place at Wong Tai Sin, on the northern outskirts of Kai Tak Airport, where a site of twenty nine acres had been designated for a large new resettle- ment estate of twenty five blocks to provide accommodation for 63,000 persons.
44. This site consisted mainly of structures built illegally on what was agricultural land, part of it leased and part on permit, on which only cultivation was permitted in accordance with the terms on which it was held. With the influx of persons into the Colony, the lessees and permittees had quite illegally 'sold' the land piecemeal to anyone who could afford to put up structures. The owners of these structures, in turn, made a profit by renting out cubicles to the vast numbers of homeless
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