ENG-1994 — Page 261

HOUSING

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Plans are in hand to offer flats to all THA residents by 1997. To this end, an accelerated clearance programme has been drawn up, with priority being given to clearing the older THAS. The programme envisages the clearance of an average of 16 300 persons each year from THAS over the next two years.

Transit Centres

Transit centres provide free emergency accommodation for homeless people pending assessment of their eligibility for rehousing to permanent or temporary housing as a result of natural disasters, clearances, tenement redevelopments, squatter demolitions, govern- ment enforcement actions and the eviction of unauthorised persons from public housing units.

The Housing Department manages seven transit centres with a capacity of 1 150 persons.

Cottage Areas

There are six cottage areas on government land in the territory, in which some 9 850 people live in largely self-owned, single-storey structures built of stone or wood and tin.

These structures were originally built mainly by welfare organisations many years ago on hillsides as temporary shelter for homeless people. They were later placed under the responsibility of the Housing Authority.

--The Housing Society

The Hong Kong Housing Society is an independent non-profit-making organisation which provides affordable, purpose-built flats of sound quality for Hong Kong citizens. It also promotes and practises efficient estate management and the development of new forms of housing to meet the changing demands of the community.

At the end of 1994, the society had a total of 32 038 rental housing units and 7 213 flats under the urban improvement and flats-for-sale schemes. Its annual production averaged about 1 609 flats in each of the

past five years.

In July, following heavy rains, a retaining wall at the Housing Society's Kwun Lung Lau Estate in Kennedy Town collapsed, with five people killed and three injured. (For details, see Chapter 14.)

Sandwich Class Housing Scheme

To meet the needs of middle-income families who are neither eligible for public housing programmes nor able to purchase a private sector flat, the government introduced the 'sandwich' class housing scheme in mid-1993 and entrusted it to the Housing Society. The scheme is intended to provide home purchase assistance for families with monthly incomes of between $22,001 and $44,000. It comprises an interim loan scheme and a main scheme. The first phase of the interim scheme was launched in August 1993 with a capital injection of $2 billion from public funds to the Housing Society. It aimed to provide loans at concessionary interest rates to up to 4 000 eligible families to purchase flats in the private

sector.

Under the second and third phases of the loan scheme in April and October 1994, respectively, successful applicants could borrow up to 25 per cent of the flat price or $550,000, whichever was less.

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