Tuesday, July 4, 1972
21,000 PEOPLE BEING OFFERED PUBLIC HOUSING
A total of 21,000 people are being offered public housing following
the completion of a comprehensive survey of licensed and squatter areas after
last month's rainstorms.
A Public Works Department engineer began the survey some two weeks ago.
As a result of his last report, which has just been submitted to the Resettlement
Department, another 7,000 squatters have been offered public housing.
This brings the total to 21,000 people.
Of these, about 5,000 will go to resettlement estates, while the others
will be given Government low-cost housing.
Commenting on reports that the Resettlement Department is withholding
empty flats from the public, a department spokesman said this was not true.
He said that these so called empty rooms had all been allocated to
either squatters involved in clearance operations or to tenants of other estates
due for decantation.
In fact, some of the department's clearance operations and decantation
programmes had to be postponed due to the sudden in-take of rainstorm victims,