Resettlement_Department_Annual_Report_1966-1967 — Page 21

RENT ADVANCE SCHEME

34. The Rent Advance Scheme offers immediate priority for resettle- ment to tenants of domestic rooms in buildings demolished as being dangerous. Those opting to join the scheme are required to pay $400.00 per adult and $200.00 per child under ten years of age as advance rent before they move into resettlement estate rooms. This is returned to tenants by means of a reduced rent for their estate rooms over a period of 125 months. Since the scheme started in May 1965, the department has collected nearly $9 million in advance payments, of which $2 million were collected in the year under review. The early high promise of the scheme was not maintained in 1966-67, due mainly to a larger and cheaper supply of private accommodation, a decline in the number of dangerous buildings, and a lack of resettlement accommodation in cen- trally located estates. The last factor was particularly important in the case of closures on Hong Kong Island, since it is there that there are the greatest dearth of conveniently-situated estates and a greater number of dangerous buildings.

35. In the year under review, the Squatter Control sub-division regis- tered 2,600 families of 12,400 persons evicted from dangerous buildings. Of these, 545 families of 2,801 persons joined the scheme; 220 families of 1,053 persons were offered sites in resite or licensed areas (although still eligible to elect for the scheme within a year of the closure of the building in which they had been living, once resited few are likely to join); while 1,835 families of 8,546 persons made their own arrangements but reserved their right to join within a year.

36. Since the scheme began, the department has registered a total of 27,708 people from dangerous buildings, of whom 11,960 have opted to join and been resettled, as against 3,086 resited and 4,116 who have made their own arrangements. The remaining 8,546 are those who had not immediately decided to join the scheme and whose option was still open at the end of the year.

RESITE AND LICENSED AREAS

37. Resiting of squatters and of those made homeless is one of the more positive duties of the sub-division. As already indicated in para- graph 14, Government 'set aside' the first eight licensed areas in December, and resiting will henceforth be to these licensed areas instead of to the old resite areas which are to be gradually cleared as the land is needed for development or for conversion to licensed areas. Class I

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