MARINE DEPARTMENT LIBRARY
the financial year 1956/57 only $1,597 had to be written off as irrecoverable arrears.
67. The Urban Council is kept in close touch with the problems of the multi-storey estates in two ways. Firstly, through its Resettlement Estates Select Committee which meets regularly in Kowloon, each meeting being normally preceded by a visit to an estate. The subjects with which this committee deals are of great variety and include evictions, heroin cases, applications from voluntary agencies for the allocation of roof- tops or rooms, other matters connected with the health and welfare of the settlers, and the hundred and one problems which must arise when very large numbers of people have to live together at such close quarters. Secondly, each Member of the Council may, if he so wishes, become a Visiting Member to the estates and will then visit one section of about two blocks every month. This close personal contact between the Members of the Council and the multi-storey estates is of great assistance to the administrative staff.
68. On the 31st March, 1957 there were 119,993 persons living in the 22,491 rooms of the six- and seven-storey buildings at Shek Kip Mei, Li Cheng Uk, Tai Hang Tung and Hung Hom and another 19,804 persons in the 3,050 rooms of the temporary two-storey buildings at Shek Kip Mei which have not yet been demolished. The total population of 139,797 persons comprised 34,439 families and 2,831 single persons, the average family size being 4.06 persons (excluding single persons). Particulars of the population of each estate may be found at Appendix I at the end of this Report.
CHAPTER VI
THE COTTAGE AREAS
A. General Description.
69. Resettlement is still being provided for a small number of squatters in five of the fourteen cottage areas where it is still possible to form a few more sites. The majority of the areas consist of a series of terraces of one-storey buildings on steep hillsides on the outskirts of the built up areas, both on Hong Kong Island and in Kowloon. At the time of their first
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