TNAG-0317-FCO40-353-Policy-of-housing-and-resettlement-in-Hong-Kong-problem-of-s-1971 — Page 60

HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL

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Policies for Squatter Control, 1964', in the light of present- day conditions, and also to examine the management of Resettlement Estates."

She said: The recommendations of the Working Party of this Council, set up in 1963, and the modified policies laid down in the Government White Paper of 1964, resulted from a need for housing for people unable to pay the high rents demanded during the housing shortage at that time. One of the more important decisions was the setting up of licensed areas for homeless people suffering from the previous policy of demolishing all huts erected after 1954. That deci- sion brought great relief to the poorest people.

There exists today a crisis as great if not greater, as a result of unreasonable rent increases in the private sector, and because of the slowing up in recent years of the resettlement programme in all its priorities as we have seen this afternoon. I believe that today greater numbers of people are in housing need, and this need is no longer confined to the poorest: it includes also the middle class, some of whom pay half their earnings in rent.

Many of the policies laid down in 1964, therefore, though good for that time, have become obsolete in our present-day conditions. In my opinion, urgent revision is needed.

According to the rather conservative estimates of the 1970 Housing Board Report, about 12 million people are at present living in sub- standard conditions, in squatter huts or huts in licensed areas, in cottages, tenements or overcrowded resettlement estates, this figure including the Urban Area and the New Territories. In the next few years another half-million children will be born, bringing the need for housing to 24 million. These housing Board figures were estimated before the full effects of the 1970 rent increases began to be felt. Nor did they include the hundreds of thousands of people in resettlement estates living at the sub-standard density of 24 - 34 square feet per adult. It might therefore be estimated that in the next five years at least 24-3 million people will need housing of reasonable standard such as Low Cost Housing or better. Yet according to Housing Board estimates, provision is being made for only a little over one million units, two-thirds being in the Government sector and one-third in the private sector. This private sector, moreover, is not likely to cater for the persons most in need of housing, and already untold numbers of people have been driven out of their homes to seek hut spaces in licensed areas, while an unknown number of others are squatting in resettlement estates, in hawker stalls, and anywhere they can find.

We are therefore facing an absolutely critical stage in housing shortage, and unless some crash programme is embarked upon, our

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