XN000022-1976-12-23 — Page 9

HONG KONG HOUSING AUTHORITY &#982A✨

PRESS

RELEASE TH

新聞稿

Wednesday, December 23, 1976

IT'S A HAPPY CHRISTMAS FOR

ONE BIG HAPPY FAMILY

Here is a Christmas story to gladden the hearts of all

Grandmother Mrs Lo Yuen-hung (61) can laugh now when she joins with

members of her family to celebrate Christmas in the living room of their spacious

flat at Converted Lower Shek Kip Mei.

But not every Christmas has been a happy one for Mrs Lo and her family for they were among the 53,000 people made homeless in the terrible. Shek Kip Mei squatter area fire at Christmas 1953 which turned more than 4,000

structures into ashes.

That fire brought public housing to Hong Kong. Within weeks temporary two-storey barracks were thrown up on the site to house as many of the homeless as possible, and then as fast as they could be built solid Mark I housing blocks sprang up to form our first resettlement estate.

Mrs Lo remembers it well. She and her late husband, with their five

sons and daughter, dashed to safety out of the huge blaze carrying only a

sackful of possessions.

We had next to nothing and our living depended on assistance given

by the Government," she said.

As a family of seven they were allocated a small flat on the Estate only 120 square feet but still much better than their flimsy hut that had burnt so fiercely and with washing and sanitary facilities which, even if they had to share them, were much better than the almost non-existent ones in the

squatter eyesore.

Mrs Lo said: "As the family grew so our eldest sons went to work in a knitting factory. Although we were living hand-to-mouth in those years our situation improved later and the youngest boy, Chan-wong, did well enough↑ as a secondary student to go to a university in Taiwan. Now he is back in Hong Kong and has a good job."

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