ENG-1957 — Page 33

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HONG KONG ANNUAL REPORT

site formation. The first block of low-cost, non-profit- making flats was completed in 1951.

What, of course, aggravated the problem of housing the great mass of those with smaller incomes was the presence of so many squatters. This is dealt with exhaustively in the First Chapter of the Annual Report for 1956, which has been reprinted as the pamphlet 'A Problem of People'.

The squatter communities presented many problems. They were health hazards, they prevented normal development by their occupation of permanent building sites and, above all, they were fire hazards. From 1950 onwards a series of dis- astrous fires in these flimsily-built shanty towns had strained the resources of the Colony's social welfare services and had involved the Colony in vast sums in relief. The early at- tempts to improve squatter conditions had been directed to resettling as many squatters as possible in cottage-type com- munities, and, by the end of 1953, some 45,000 had been so resettled. But progress was slow and hampered to no small degree by the squatter's inability to finance his own resettle- ment. The squatter was still a house-owner, and his new home, whether he bought it outright or on easy terms through non-profit-making organizations such as the Settlers Housing Corporation, or whether he built it from such materials as he could lay hand to, still cost more than the majority could afford. Only the few were lucky enough to secure one of the cottages built by one of the voluntary relief agencies which generously assisted with the work. However, while this resettlement programme was doing something to put an end to the appalling fires and to eradicate the risks to health and good order which the illegal squatter colonies presented, it was doing nothing to free land for the large- scale organized low-cost housing schemes which were the only way to relieve overcrowding in the tenements. It had become abundantly clear very early in the programme that the building of cheap bungalows in resettlement areas did not provide the complete answer to Hong Kong's housing