ENG-1966 — Page 197

Nineteen resettlement estates have so far been completed, comprising 397 blocks. The biggest is at Wong Tai Sin, housing 88,000 people. But even bigger will be the estate at Tsz Wan Shan, now partially complete, which will accommodate over 170,000. Squatters form the bulk of those moving into these estates, but also eligible are tenants of buildings condemned as dangerous, compassionate cases recom- mended by the Social Welfare Department and certain victims of natural disasters. Larger apartments are given to families already resettled but which have outgrown their previous accommodation. Basic alloca- tion is 24 square feet per adult.

For administrative purposes a child under 10 counts as half an adult, and the average family consists of four and a half adults-

say a married couple, a grandparent and three young children. With two members of the family working, their income would be - about HK$400 a month. Their rent in the older blocks” would be HK$18 a month, or 41 per cent of income, for 120 square feet and in the newer blocks HK$35, or 83 per cent of income, for 129 square feet. Rents are calculated to cover annual recurrent costs and administration, and to recover the capital outlay in 40 years at 31 per cent interest. The total cost of the resettlement programme is borne solely by the Hong Kong Government. Cost to date is HK$670 million.

But resettlement involves more than rehousing. Side by side with this operation has gone the provision of schools, clinics, community centres and other social and welfare amenities.

All the estates have privately run primary schools which pay nominal rents, some of which are subsidized by the government. At the beginning of 1966 there were 132,000 school children in the estates. The schools are on the rooftops or ground floors in the older estates and in separate annexes in the new estates.