TNAG-0317-FCO40-353-Policy-of-housing-and-resettlement-in-Hong-Kong-problem-of-s-1971 — Page 182

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you.

Three points here will not have escaped First, the programme recommended covers 340,000 more people than are presently in temporary housing. This is because not all permanent housing is satisfactory by any means: much suffers from age and dilapidation or from over-crowding due, for example, to increases in family-size since the family was housed. Second, the numbers in temporary structures are greater than those usually quoted. This is because they include the New Territories squatters; while the figure of 500,000 usually quoted relates to urban squatters only. Finally, although the recommendations provide for 340,000 more people than are in temporary structures, to cope with the unsatis- factorily housed, one cannot say that this is enough, for the estimated numbers exceed this. The Board has made an estimate that accommodation for 500,000 people would have been required at 31 March 1970 to provide each family with its own self-contained accommodation, but unsatisfactorily housed is not of course a precise term, and varies with a community's standards, aspirations and income levels. A squatter, moreover, particularly in the New Territories perhaps, may well be better housed in a well-built hut than the occupant of a bed-space in the urban area. While long-term slum-clearance (or "urban renewal") programmes are being embarked upon, these will not solve the problem of old and overcrowded premises either quickly or completely.

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Considering now the only group of squatters not yet within squatter-clearance policy (or, if you like, hut-clearance policy); that is to say those on Crown Land not required for development; the latest Housing Board report has

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