MARINE DEPARTMENT LIBRAR.
other signs of residence, and it may be quite difficult to establish which families and which members of each family are genuinely resident in a hut. Where the claims made are clearly unacceptable he will refuse to screen; where claims are doubtful he will return later to make a fuller investigation. Only when the officer-in-charge of the Screening Unit is fully satisfied that the particulars on the screening form are an accurate record of the genuine residents of a hut is a Resettlement Department temporary identity card-popularly known as a 'white card' -issued to the head of the household.
31. The screening forms are then passed to the Mobile Resettlement Unit. The officers in this Unit are mainly experienced Area Officers who have formerly been on the administrative staff of resettlement estates or areas and who are able to answer the queries and put at rest the doubts which some squatters may have about life in a resettle- ment estate and its advantages as compared with life in a squatter area. About a month before the clearance is due to take place the Mobile Unit establishes a temporary office in or near the squatter area to be cleared and then issues clearance and resettlement notices giving the date by which the squatters should register, the dates on which they should move, the date by which their houses must be demolished, particulars of the type of accommodation for which the family is eligible, and the procedure to be followed. The relationship of the squatter to this clearance and resettlement organization is always close and often friendly and every clearance is so handled that each family feels that due attention is being given to its own particular problems. For the next four weeks the staff in the Mobile Unit's temporary office has to be ready to answer all kinds of inquiries, to deal sympathetically with requests and to help in solving personal and family problems. One of the points on which they have to advise is the type of businesses -shops, restaurants, workshops, etc.—which are allowed in the ground floor rooms in estates and whether an Urban Council licence is required. If the business being operated is one which cannot be allowed on the ground floor of a domestic building the squatter may decide to change his trade.
32.
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.
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