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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
DIRECTOR OF SOCIAL WELFARE:-The quota of 700, I think I am right in saying, was decided in 1966 or it was to start in 1967. Before that it had been 600 and before that 500 and before that 400. It goes back to when the scheme was started.
MR. HU: Mr. Chairman, in view of the progress of our resettlement programme, the building of Resettlement Estates, and in view of the changing ideas in this community that we should render more people certain help in their basic need, could this quota of 700 families or 3,000 persons per year to be resettled on compassionate grounds be increased, say, ten times?
DIRECTOR OF SOCIAL WELFARE:-Could I speak, Sir, rather than answering that. I would like Mr. Hu to know precisely where we are on this quota for compassionate resettlement. We do, of course, have to determine criteria in deciding who should be recommended and which are designed to pick out the most needy and to ensure that everyone is treated in the same way. It is very difficult indeed to try and work two things, criteria on one side and fixed quota on the other, because you can never tell precisely how many your criteria is going to produce. In fact, in the last financial year, out of a quota of 700 there were, in fact, only 577 recommendations for compassionate resettlement, about 80% of the quota, but that was working the same criteria as the year before which produced 640 recommendations or 90% of the quota, and this always appeared to me rather difficult and putting the cart before the horse. If it can be the case, and I think it is, it certainly appears to me to be so, that the number of compassionate cases recommended could be increased considerably without detracting from the original purpose of resettlement, then I would entirely agree with Mr. Hu that resettlement could be used in a slightly different manner to produce a real step forward in assisting people in the Colony. If we go for proper criteria, not criteria to keep the figure down to 700, and then if this is acceptable to the Resettlement Policy Select Committee, I envisage that we could take a real step forward in aligning public housing with public assistance. I myself would like to be able to put a recommendation of that nature to the Resettlement Policy Select Committee.
MR. BERNACCHI:-As Chairman of the Resettlement Policy Select Committee, I heartily endorse these observations, and I would request that a copy of the questions and answers be supplied to that Committee, at its next meeting, for its deliberation.
MR. HU: Mr. Chairman, I thank the Director of Social Welfare for his answer. May I ask him, am I correct in thinking that the real question is the qualifications for compassionate resettlement? Is that the real question?
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
DIRECTOR OF SOCIAL WELFARE:-That is what I would like to change, Sir, on to a different basis. I think it can only properly be done if I were to have a sort of flexible quota and a considerably greater quota than exists at the present time.
MR. HU:-Thank you, and I would also like to ask a supplementary, because in this answer it was not stipulated what are the present qualifications for compassionate resettlement.
DIRECTOR OF SOCIAL WELFARE:-I would be very happy to send Mr. Hu the written qualifications, it is a lengthy document. Briefly, it aims for low-level, low-income families and it says that there should be some reasons which make it essential, for social reasons, that that particular family shall be re-housed. This is its broad outline.
MR. HU:-Mr. Chairman, I have two poor families, they are fisherfolk in the Aberdeen Ward. I wrote in each case over ten letters about domestic resettlement. Up to now, I think, there is still no satisfactory answer, the question is still pending. Therefore I raise this question why those poor people cannot be given a room. They are begging week after week, letter after letter, and still these two poor families have nowhere to live. This is why I raise this question. I would say that it is the Government's duty to give those poor people a shelter to live in. Mr. Chairman, if you want the names of these persons, I can supply them to you now.
CHAIRMAN:-You can supply them to the Commissioner for Resettlement immediately after the meeting, Mr. Hu.
MR. HU:-I already wrote over ten letters in each case.
(9) MR. HENRY H. L. Hu asked the following question:-
In view of the interest of some private persons, could the Chairman inform the Council whether the Council contemplates setting up a wax museum in Hong Kong?
MR. WILSON T. S. WANG, CHAIRMAN OF THE MUSEUM AND ART GALLERY SELECT COMMITTEE, replied as follows:-
Until last week the idea of a wax museum has never been brought to this Council, so the exact answer to this question would be that the Council does not contemplate such a museum at present. However, as Mr. Hu has very kindly sent in a proposal to set up an oriental wax museum, the Museum and Art Gallery Select Committee has now included the proposal on the agenda for its next meeting. Mr. Hu will certainly be welcome to attend.
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