88. The objective of these Homes is to help the girls with personal or family problems to develop or regain a satisfactory relationship with their families and to readjust themselves to normal life in the community.
PUBLIC ASSISTANCE
89. Public Assistance aims at relieving distress and hardship among individuals and families as a part of the process of re-establishing them as independent. Applicants for public assistance are therefore not only given tangible services such as material and financial assistance and help in obtaining special forms of service such as employment, a fixed- pitch hawker licence, domestic resettlement, schooling, but also receive the support that counselling can afford so as to enable them to handle their problems more effectively, to adjust better to their environment, to regain a sense of own worth, and a greater capability for economic independence.
90. Public Assistance casework is handled by the caseworkers in the District Offices and Sub-offices. The responsibility is a heavy one, and particularly towards the end of the year the pressure of work was intense, a situation which does not conduce to the kind of casework that the needy are likely to require to help them overcome their difficulties.
91. The Principal Officer (Public Assistance) remains responsible for the efficient operation of two large kitchens and two food distribution centres. The two kitchens, one at Happy Valley and the other at Hung Hom, are capable of producing cooked food in great quantity at short notice, and can provide up to 110,000 meals a day to meet any large scale natural disaster. The kitchens are at present producing an average total of 803 meals daily for needy people scattered throughout the Colony. The distribution centres at Happy Valley and Yau Ma Tei distributed an average daily total of 6,809 shares of dry rations. This shows an increase of 48.9% as compared with the corresponding figure on the 31st March 1967, and was the result of a continuous trend which became apparent throughout the year. On 31st May 1967 the number of cases on relief was 3,226 and by 30th November 1967 the total had increased to 4,486 or an increase of 39%. A comparison of the number of public assistance cases during the last six months of the year with the corresponding period in 1967-68 shows the size of the absolute increase, from 3,066 cases to 5,391 cases or a 75% increase, and by 31st March 1968 the number of families receiving public assistance stood at 5,148. The causes of this increase are several. First, there is
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