Resettlement_Department_Annual_Report_1968-1969 — Page 34

eviction. In Hong Kong's resettlement estates the practice is for the staff first to give a verbal warning; when necessary this is followed by a preliminary and then by final warning letters. Experience has shown that in most cases a warning is effective, but if the final warning is ignored the competent authority has to decide whether the tenancy should be terminated and the tenant with his family required to quit. During the year, 503 tenancies were terminated, of which 423 were for non-payment of rent; 1 for operating a business without the requisite licence; 6 for unauthorized transfers concealed under the guise of equally unauthorized subletting; and 73 for miscellaneous other reasons. Most of the terminations for non-payment of rent are the result of the tenants moving to an undisclosed destination with no intention of returning.

RELIEF OF OVERCROWDING

76. Most of the overcrowding which occurs in rooms which have been occupied for a number of years arises from natural increase and from children reaching the age of ten and qualifying as 'adults'. In other cases it arises from authorized increases to the family. In 1964 the competent authorities decided that registered tenants could add to their household their dependent children, parents and newly married wives or husbands; and if this addition made their room density unacceptably high, they would then be entitled to move to a larger room. In 1966, concerned by the growing commitment to relieve overcrowding, the Housing Board recommended a review of this policy, and in December of that year, several changes were introduced. For example, a woman who is already a member of an authorized household is normally no longer permitted to bring in her newly married husband-he is expected to provide for her elsewhere; and the Social Welfare Department now assists in examining more closely the degree of dependence of elderly relatives whom tenants wish to add to their households.

77. Nevertheless, the problem of overcrowding never ceases to tax the attention and consciences of all concerned. As already mentioned, rooms have been allocated since the beginning of the resettlement programme at a density of approximately 24 square feet for each adult in the family, two children under the age of ten counting as one adult. (In practice, the allocation has in recent years usually been somewhat more generous than this). The pressure to increase the size of the

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