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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
COMMISSIONER FOR RESETTLEMENT:-Sir, I think that the Department tries to get people to couple up and I think it also tries to examine their suitability for coupling up but I think the experience of the Department is this is not a very satisfactory way of dealing with things. We are in fact experimenting in Kwun Tong, Block 20, in dividing single rooms into two to see if it is possible to put people in half a room instead of asking two of them to share. I think it is a difficult thing to expect two people who have never known one another before, and who have never lived together, to live in the same room and it creates difficulties. For example, if one of the parties gets married then there is a problem about others coming in to share.
MRS. ELLIOTT:-Mr. Chairman, I quite agree that it can cause trouble if they live together but has any effort been made to find out people who would genuinely prefer to live together, blind couples and so on. I wonder what effort has been made?
COMMISSIONER FOR RESETTLEMENT:-I think, Sir, we have tried in the past and during the next four days our Department is interviewing all the outstanding single cases to see where it might be possible to accommodate them. In some cases I think the Social Welfare Department is recommending two persons for sharing and I think this will help the Department in sorting out those cases where I think it is likely that two people can share. But I think myself the answer is more likely to lie in the division of rooms rather than in the continual pressing of people to share with people they don't know.
MRS. ELLIOTT:-Mr. Chairman, in paragraph 3, it says 69 are families and they have refused the accommodation offered. Can I have some assurance that new cases will not be refused while we wait for this 69?
COMMISSIONER FOR RESETTLEMENT:-Yes, I can give that assurance.
MRS. ELLIOTT:-Mr. Chairman, may I ask when the new cases will, I know you have begun to accept cases of great urgency but what about cases that are urgent but not of great urgency. Have you begun to accept cases in the normal way?
COMMISSIONER FOR RESETTLEMENT:-I think, Sir, that it should be possible to begin accepting new cases this month. However, before we do this I would like personally to examine the referral system because it seems to me that if priority for resettlement on compassionate grounds is to be meaningful, then it must take effect quite quickly and for reasons which I don't fully understand yet it doesn't seem possible to accommodate people as quickly as we would like.
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
MRS. ELLIOTT:-Mr. Chairman, I appreciate that answer because it seems to me that there is something wrong with the referral but may I ask if, because we are already five months behind this year, is anything being done to speed up the procedure by getting more personnel?
COMMISSIONER FOR RESETTLEMENT:-At the moment, Sir, we have two officers fully engaged on dealing with compassionate cases alone. They can process about 100 cases a month which if you multiply by 12 and then by 5 comes to roughly the number of people that we have given quota for accommodation for so I don't really think that we can do very much to increase the staff but I do think that we shall in future be able to deal with them a little quicker than we have done in the past but so much depends on whether the accommodation is coming forward evenly. It doesn't always do so. For example in January and February this year, there was not much accommodation available for compassionate cases but towards the end of this year I think the amount available is going to increase and when that happens we shall be capable of moving people or offering them accommodation and moving them in, if they accept it, quite quickly.
MRS. ELLIOTT:-Mr. Chairman, I have been told, I don't know whether it is exactly this or whether I have got the story a little wrong that Social Welfare has been given the hint not to accept or not to refer cases at the present. Does that still refer?
COMMISSIONER FOR RESETTLEMENT:-I think I did say just that thing just a little earlier.
MRS. ELLIOTT:-That means from Social Welfare?
COMMISSIONER FOR RESETTLEMENT:-I think Social Welfare and Medical Departments did agree that they would hold up referral cases until we had got this rather big backlog cleared.
CHAIRMAN:-Except I think for urgent cases.
COMMISSIONER FOR RESETTLEMENT:-Except for the very urgent cases.
MRS. ELLIOTT:-I am very concerned about this, Mr. Chairman, because if a person is in need of resettlement and he needs it at once, can we have the assurance of the Commissioner for Resettlement that he will really get on the ball on this because I think it has been neglected a long time?
CHAIRMAN:-I think he has just assured us.
COMMISSIONER FOR RESETTLEMENT:-I think actually we aren't so far off the ball. If you look at the overall figures (I have them here) since the 1st February, which is about six months, we have in fact
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