Children at play at Ngau Tau Kok Estate primary school.
Simple homes for Hong Kong's needy
thousands
The Hong Kong Government Low-Cost Housing programme caters for low income families who do not qualify for resettlement and who are not eligi- ble for Housing Authority or Housing Society accommodation. The first flats under this scheme were completed in 1962 and they met an urgent need.
The resettlement programme, started eight years previously had made great progress in tackling the squatter problemn, while the Housing Authority, and the Housing Society, - each financed by Government loans - housed thousands of "white coflar" workers in rather better accommodation.
But there were many families living in insanitary and overcrowded conditions who did not qualify for resettlement and whose income was too low to
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The vast Ngau Tau Kok Government Low Cost Housing Estate houses nearly forty thousand people — roughly equivalent to the population of a good-sized English town.
make them eligible for Housing Authority or Housing Society flats.
Often the plight of these people was worse than that of the squatters. Many lived in tiny airless cubicles in old sium tenements at disproportionately high rents.
It was for these people that the new government- sponsored programme was started. And for want of a better name it was labelled Government Low- Cost Housing.
Its aim was to provide accommodation on the basis of 35 square feet per adult, with a single-room flat with private balcony for each family. The standard of accommodation was superior to that of resettlement estates, but lower than Housing Authority flats.
Rents for these flats have remained at approxi- mately 26 cents per square foot per month, includ- ing rates. But the standard of accommodation has improved over the years in step with the introduc- tion of better standards in resettlement estates.
The emphasis has now shifted in the overall housing effort to project the Government Low-Cost Housing programme more into the limelight.
This is principally because of the Government's success in containing the squatter problem. It has also meant that the Government Low-Cost Housing Register, which was closed in 1964 because of the initial huge response, has been thrown open again.
By the end of 1968, in the space of six years, the programme had provided housing for 135,000
people in 80 blocks in nine estates. Over the next six years at a greatly expanded building rate it should cater for another 400,000.
Government Low-Cost Housing is financed en- tirely from public revenue. Since the first founda- tions were laid in 1961, the programme has cost approximately $130 million, Estates are built by the Public Works Department and handed over to the Hong Kong Housing Authority who act as Government's agents for letting and management.
Fifteen per cent of the accommodation (with a limit of 25,000 units up to 1973 when the policy will be reviewed) is reserved for junior government officers. But most tenants are selected from a register of applicants on a basis of housing need.
Domestic accommodation is a single living sleeping room and private balcony with a cooking bench and water point at one end and a flush toilet at the other.
Estates have large areas of open space laid out for recreation. Multi-storey blocks of flats ranging
A family meal in a typical estate flat.
Estates bustle with life. Shops, schools, playgrounds - and convenient access to public transport are an integral part of the Government Low Cost Housing scheme.
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