development and control of resite areas which are to be graded into Class I and Class II areas. People permitted to live in any of these will have to pay licence fees for the sites on which they build their huts. Eligibility for admission will not only cover the existing categories but will embrace a wider field of people who are genuinely homeless. To implement this new policy, extensive reserves for such resite areas have been earmarked and an assistant resettlement officer is engaged in planning the layout of, and services for, them.
32. The 'Rent Advance Scheme', introduced in May 1965, is open to 'protected' tenants (i.e. tenants in pre-war buildings enjoying con- trolled rents) evicted from dangerous buildings since May 1965 and those who were evicted before that date but were still living in a resite area. Up to the end of the year under review, 1,212 families in the former category and 2,686 families in the latter were resettled under this scheme into various resettlement estates. The majority to these were resettled in the new Mark IV blocks. Over $7 million were collected in rent advance from these families. Two assistant resettlement officers were engaged in dealing with these condemned tenement and tenement redevelopment cases.
33. The remaining list of duties performed by the Squatter Control Sub-Division is a varied one. There is a great deal of case-work and investigation, and area officers are often asked to settle disputes and complaints among squatters. They are required to stop interlopers from taking up residence in huts which have been screened for resettlement, and they play a part in the procedure for clearing an area during a resettlement operation. They assist in the registration of victims of natural disasters, arrange temporary shelter in transit camps and then arrange for resiting, if necessary. They also report cases of destroyed or seriously damaged huts after natural disasters so that rebuilding grants can be paid to the victims from the Community Relief Trust Fund.
CHAPTER 4
SQUATTER CLEARANCE
34. The Clearance Sub-Division of the Operations Division is responsible for planning and carrying out the squatter clearance programme.
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