Agents of Eviction: The Squatter Control and Clearance Division of Hong Kong’s Housing Department

Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 23(3), 2002, 333-347 Copyright 2002 Department of Geography, National University of Singapore and Blackwell Publishers Ltd

INTRODUCTION

More is known about the policies that produceforced evictions and their consequences(Azuela et al., 1998) than about the agencieswhose responsibility it is to conduct them.Understanding the nature of forced evictionsrequires greater comprehension of responsibleagencies. While agencies may not set policies,how they implement them can be a significantintervening variable affecting outcomes and,sometimes indirectly, the policy formationprocess.

This paper examines the Squatter Controland Clearance Division of the Hong KongHousing Department, an agency assigned thetwin jobs of evicting residents of illegally builtstructures and controlling areas of illegal

occupation prior to their eventual eviction.Unlike other territories that have hadsubstantial proportions of their populationliving in irregular settlements, Hong Kong hasnever regularised the tenure situation in anysquatter area and forbids the improvement oftheir housing, although 220,000 people stilllived in such areas in 2001 (Housing Authority,2001). Unless a major change in policydirection occurs, forced eviction is theeventual fate of all Hong Kong’s squatters,one that influences all facets of their physicalenvironment and social organisation. Thissituation, where occupants are tolerated for atime but not given rights of tenure, representsa rather unusual pattern of routinisationwithout regularisation. The result is that both

AGENTS OF EVICTION: THE SQUATTER CONTROLAND CLEARANCE DIVISION OF HONG KONG’S

HOUSING DEPARTMENT

Alan SmartDepartment of Anthropology, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada

ABSTRACT

More is known about the policies that produce forced evictions and their consequences thanabout the agencies whose responsibility it is to conduct them. Understanding the nature of forcedevictions requires greater comprehension of responsible agencies since the ways in which theyimplement policies may be a crucial intervening variable influencing the outcomes. In this paper,I use documentary and ethnographic research to describe the Squatter Control and ClearanceDivision of the Hong Kong Housing Department. Responsible both for evicting squatters and forcontrolling squatter areas that are permitted to remain for the time being, officers must respond tothe conflicts and challenges of their twin, partially conflicting, mandates. Examination of changesin squatter control and clearance practices since 1954 is followed by a brief case study of the mostrecent squatter clearance that occurred in July 2001.

Keywords: Squatters, evictions, public housing, implementation, agency, Hong Kong

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the modality of regulation and the focus ofresistance and protest are primarily bureaucraticrather than political (as has been common in thetreatment of squatters in Latin America andelsewhere) or judicial (as is the predominant styleof eviction in liberal democracies such as Canada;see Olds, 1998). In this aspect, an understandingof the agency in charge of squatter control andclearance is of particular importance.

Why should the situation in Hong Kong be ofinterest, given its idiosyncratic, perhaps unique,features? The bureaucratic administration of illegalbut tolerated structures and their occupants insome of the most expensive real estate in the worldforces us to reconsider what we think we knowabout forced eviction, and about administrativeprocesses more generally. This paper is in part astudy of the structuring and restructuring of HongKong’s squatter settlements, but also an attemptto contribute to a small but important set ofethnographic studies of the state (e.g. Merry, 1990;Heyman, 1995, 2002; Touillot, 2001). Anethnographic approach to the state requires us toattend to practices as well as to official statementsand policies, and laws. Much of this work will beeasier in future decades when we have access toofficial files and data systems. For now, we canonly start to piece together the available scraps ofinformation about what is really going on as theHong Kong government administers and controlsthe “illegal” occupation of space.

After a brief discussion of the development ofthe Squatter Control Division, two sectionsdescribe the practices used in the control andclearance of squatter areas. A brief case study ofa clearance of the Inverness Road squatter areaconducted in July 2001, focusing on the outcomesfor the residents, is followed by concludingcomments.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THESQUATTER CONTROL ANDCLEARANCE DIVISION

At the end of World War II, when Britainresumed administration of the shatteredcolony, the population of Hong Kong had

dropped to 600,000 under Japanese occupationfrom nearly two million in 1941. By the end of1946 this rose to one million, reaching twomillion in 1951. By 1949 squatters numbered300,000. In general, the postwar numbers ofsquatters saw a gradual increase to a peak of750,000 in the early 1980s, before slowlydeclining to the current 220,000. While myanalysis will concentrate on the control ofsquatting after 1954, the agency responsibleon which I focus is an historical product ofconflicts during the period between 1945 and1953.

It is generally held that Hong Kong’s housingproblem resulted from the private sector’sinability to construct affordable housing for themassive influx of low-income people from Chinafrom 1945 onwards. The consensus in theliterature is that the resulting housing situation,which generated threats to public health, firehazards in squatter areas, barriers to developmentof land and pressure on wages due to high rents,therefore made government intervention inpublic housing inevitable. There was indeed amassive housing problem that the private sectordid not seem capable of solving, and theShekkipmei squatter area fire of 1953 was animportant stimulus for the Squatter ResettlementProgramme which was implemented for much ofthe population, largely to the benefit of thegovernment and property owners anddevelopers. The government now providesshelter for half of the total population.

The main area of disagreement in thehistorical account concerns three main rivalexplanations for the impetus in the developmentof Hong Kong’s large-scale public housingprogramme, specifically, whether it was out ofconcern for public welfare, to support privateland developers, or a provision for thereproduction of labour power. However, all theseviews mistakenly accept the housing problemas an inevitability, leaving open only thealternatives of whether or not the governmentwould accept the responsibility of housingthose that the private sector could not, and ifso, how it was to be done (for a fuller

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discussion, see Smart 1989, 1992). Anotheralternative was identified in the LegislativeCouncil at the time: instead of expandinginvolvement in land administration andhousing, the government could have reducedits intervention as the state’s own adminis-tration was impeding development (Smart,1989). Allowing the private sector to build as itwished on leasehold agricultural land mighthave produced more housing, although perhapsat great cost. Evidence for this can be found inthe way the private sector did illegally buildlarge amounts of housing for the poor,producing squatter dwellings for purchase orrent, often on private agricultural land. Squattersettlements proliferated through three combinedfactors: regulatory bottlenecks that impeded theconstruction of low-cost private housing; thehigh demand for affordable accommodation ofany kind; and the willingness of squatters andconstruction companies to risk building withoutthe legal right to do so.

Efforts to prevent, eradicate and controlillegal settlements in Hong Kong wereimplemented in three distinct phases (Smart,2001). My emphasis here is on the formalagencies required for squatter control ratherthan on the second and third phases ofresettlement and exclusion respectively. From1945 to the Shekkipmei fire in 1953, thegovernment attempted to prevent newsquatting, eradicated those in areas needed fordevelopment without compensating evictees,and tolerated squatters on land that it did notneed for the moment (phase of repression).From 1954, the government became heavilyinvolved in the direct provision of housing withthe resettlement of squatters in high-rise, poorquality public housing projects (phase ofresettlement). By 1984, while new squattingwas under control, the removal of resettlementrights for new squatters served to exclude ever-greater proportions from access to permanentpublic rental housing (phase of exclusion).

Prior to 1954, the government had noeffective control over squatters, despiteintensive demolition. Squatters concentrated

in areas where development was unlikely andillegal structures were usually ignored. If theycaused any difficulties, however, they could beharassed with few limitations since they werein breach of innumerable rules. Evictedinhabitants received no compensation.Displacement without rehousing generatedresentment and resistance, and outrage andviolent responses were anticipated wheneverdemolitions were planned (Grantham, 1965).Tensions involved in this repressive regimeeventually led to resettlement. By themselves,protests might not have led to resettlement. Inmany parts of the world, large numbers ofsquatters have been displaced without beingrehoused. But, as a British colony, situationsthat threatened political and diplomatic stabilitywere taken seriously. Squatter areas full of angryresidents were seen as “breeding grounds” forcommunist rabble-rousing and as providingpretexts for Beijing to intervene in Hong Kong’sinternal affairs (Lui & Chiu, 1999; Mark, 2000).Thus, the potential for protesting squatters tocontribute to heightened diplomatic instabilityprovided the missing mechanism that convertedsquatter clearance into squatter resettlement(see Smart, 1989).

A new Resettlement Department was createdto manage both squatter clearance/control andthe resettlement estates. Mackay (2000:457)states that it “was run on military lines and manyof the resettlement officers, all men, were ex-soldiers”, and furthermore, the resettlementestates were poorly managed because “part ofthe problem with the Resettlement Departmentwas that it was run by civil service ‘generalistadministrators’ rather than housingprofessionals. There were no guidelines formanagement and policies towards tenants werebased largely on the whims of the officers”. Bycontrast, the philanthropic Housing Authorityand Housing Society projects employedhousing professionals. Riots in 1966 and 1967led to investigations which concluded thathousing conditions contributed to publicdisaffection (Castells et al., 1990). Con-sequently, in 1973, “the ResettlementDepartment, which by that time had over

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200,000 properties, was to be taken over bythe Housing Authority which was about a sixthof the size, but had clearly demonstrated onthe ground the value of housing management,to form a new more powerful HousingAuthority and Housing Department”(Mackay, 2000:460). Policies were to be set bythe Housing Authority, with the HousingDepartment as the executive branch. Castellset al. (1990:50) provide a generally veryfavourable account of the “efficiency of theHousing Authority after its reorganisation in1973” as a crucial factor in the expansion ofpublic housing provision, but do point outthat (p. 56):

some of the efficiency in productionand management of the housing estatesmight have arisen from the authoritarianenvironment. Invested with full powersby the Governor, provided withfinancial autonomy, having consider-able leverage with private developersand commercial and industrial lessees,the Housing Authority actually plannedits own city with few constraints.

The Housing Department was organisedinto four branches: Construction; EstateManagement; Administration and Planning;and Operations. In 1981, the Operationsbranch (with 1,863 staff, 22.7 per cent of theDepartment total) included divisions forclearance, squatter control, redevelopment andtemporary housing. Expenditures on squattercontrol and squatter clearance in 1981 wereHK$49.1 million (US$1=HK$7.80 in 2001) andHK$24.3 million respectively (HousingAuthority, 1981). In 1989, in response to thedecline in the squatter population, theOperations and Estate Management brancheswere combined to form the Housing Manage-ment Branch.

The regime change with the 1997 handoverushered in managerial reform, which includedthe decision to outsource the management andmaintenance of the Housing Authority’sestates to private sector firms (Walker, 2001)

and, equally significant, the effort to dividethe regulatory and developer roles nowcombined in the Authority and concentrateon the latter. The organisational and account-ing transformation has restructured theHousing Department into business units, eachwith its own business manager, to encouragea “focus upon costs, economy and perfor-mance” (Walker, 2001:10). These changes arein line with global trends towards what isdescribed as “new public managerialism”,characterised by “the introduction of privatesector management practices into those partsof the public sector that have not beenprivatised” (Saint-Martin, 2000:9). These newmanagement paradigms create a difficultsituation for the Squatter Control andClearance Division, since it accrues only coststo the government without prospects ofgenerating net revenues. In the newdispensation, the prestige and influence of theDivision are low and established routinesgreatly affected by downsizing andrestructuring. This is reflected in the currentorganisation chart, which in 1997 placed themin a new Allocation and Marketing branch,along with such divisions as Home Ownership,and Applications and Allocation (HousingAuthority, 2001).

THE PRACTICE OF SOCIALCONTROL

During doctoral research between 1982 and1985, my access to government officials wasvery limited compared to the work I conductedwith squatter residents. In 1999, I returned tothese issues and have been surprised at myaccess to housing officers, and the franknessand openness with which they have discussedissues.

Despite a disciplinary emphasis onethnographic method, anthropologists havebeen more inclined to theorise about the stateon the basis of secondary materials than toengage in ethnographic study of it. Part ofthe problem is methodological: Nader (1972)made it clear how difficult it can be to “study

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up” at the same time as she encouraged it.When we observe state officers, this is usuallythe indirect outcome of the involvement ofofficials in the lives and activities of the“ordinary people” that we more commonlystudy. Exceptions such as the work of Heyman(1995, 1999) on the US Border Patroldemonstrate the potential for reconsidering theoperations of the state through ethnographicanalysis.

Given the ubiquity of “situationaladjustment” – the reinterpretation of ruleswhen they must be applied to challengingcontexts (Moore, 1978) – if we “read off” theactivities of the state from the formal policiesand organisational charts we may misinterprethow the agency operates through practicalactivity. Frontline officers cope with policiesthat cannot easily be implemented. Foucault(1991) argued that the nature of a state is afunction of changes in the practices of itsagents. Such agents must themselves becontrolled. The supervision of squattercontrol officers is problematic since vigilantand strict implementation of the letter of thelaw can make their work more difficult.

It is perhaps less surprising thatethnographers have trouble in being allowedto conduct participant observation, or evenintensive interviewing, within governmentagencies than it is that some do manage togain good access. An official has little togain and more to lose from telling an outsiderwhat really goes on; it is safer to stick to the“party line” and describe practice ascompletely in accord with official policies andregulations. It is the occasional outbreaks offrankness that amaze and make up for thetedium of official public relations talk.Differences in access may be one of the fewadvantages of getting to be older, greyer andmore established. In my case, it has alsohelped that many officers in the Hong KongHousing Department now take degrees inhousing because introductions fromcolleagues who had supervised Master’scandidates were extremely helpful.

Perhaps just as crucial, though, are changesin the political context. There is a greaterrhetoric of openness at present, althoughrhetoric does not necessarily translate intoactual practice. Another important factor hasbeen the managerial restructuring discussedabove that has resulted in disaffection and areduction in morale and esprit de corps,particularly strongly felt in the SquatterControl Division, which now has little prestigeor influence. I benefited from this situation,as low morale seemed to translate into a greaterfrankness, in contrast to earlier tendencies todefend the agency’s reputation. Ten housingofficials were interviewed in the course of myresearch in 1999-2001. The longest totalinterview, timed over a variety of occasionswith one of these officials, was at least 16 hours;the second most intensive involved about 12hours of discussions and site visits.

The interface between squatters andcontrol officers has to be seen in terms ofintersecting, often opposed, practices. Theroutines and worldviews of Hong Kong’ssquatters and those of officials charged withtheir control and surveillance are very different,even if some of those officials had lived inillegal settlements at an earlier point in theirlife (as several interviewees had). Ho (1989:7)critiques how Castells (1986) can “infer theintentions and the objectives of the policyfrom the results the policy brought forth….[The] basic problem of Castells’ analysis isthat he has not comprehended the objectivesof the policy from the viewpoint of thegovernment officials” (also see Castells et al.,1990). I would add that he also failed to see itfrom the perspective of those who are beingcleared, resettled and housed (Smart, 1989).

All three phases of postwar squatterregulation involved practices of contingenttoleration, that is, situations where illegalconditions are allowed to persist withoutchange in the official situation. Letting thestructures and the occupants remain is aconcession rather than an acknowledgementof rights. To avoid conceding property rights,


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until 1984 it was the structures that wereregistered and tolerated, not the occupants.

Squatter control, 1954-84Between 1954 and 1984, the Hong Konggovernment followed a policy of toleratingsquatting without extending ownership rightsto irregular structures. According to prevailingpolicy criteria, those living in registeredsquatter dwellings when these were scheduledfor demolition were eligible for rehousing.Before 1954, toleration resulted from theinability to eradicate squatting; afterwards,toleration was formalised. Although newillegal structures were not allowed, in practice,unless they were discovered in the process ofbeing constructed (and demolished) they weregenerally informally tolerated and, on severaloccasions, included in later registrationsurveys. Clearances were kept secret and thefirst sign was usually the registration ofresidents. Those who could prove theirresidency in registered structures were eligiblefor resettlement in permanent public housing,depending on the specifics of allocation whichchanged over time. The main factors werewhether or not the structure had beenregistered, household size (for example,singleton households, except those aged over60, have received rehousing only since 1998)and duration of residence in Hong Kong.Those ineligible for public housing wererehoused in Temporary Housing Areas, whichhad much lower standards of quality, lowerspace allocations and poorer facilities.

Squatter control since 1984The system of squatter control changedfundamentally after a 1984-85 territory-wideregistration of all the occupants of squatterdwellings, not just the structures. The newpolicy hence forward is that only registeredmembers of surveyed households are eligiblefor resettlement into permanent housing,though in practice most unregistered residentsare resettled in temporary housing. The resulthas been a dual registration system, one forillegal structures and one for residents, wherebyonly those included in both registries are eligible

for resettlement. Residents move out and selltheir structures to others, resulting in aninexorable decrease in the proportion ofsquatters eligible for resettlement in permanentpublic housing.

While there are only 20,000 squatters left inthe main urban areas (and they are likely to bedisplaced within the decade), the policy oftoleration is being continued in the NewTerritories beyond the Kowloon mountainswhere, in 2001, another 200,000 lived. NewTerritories squatter structures, until cleared fordevelopment, can be repaired with permissionfrom the local squatter control office, andgranted only if they use the same kind of originalmaterials and do not exceed previousdimensions. The majority undertake repairswithout permission, most frequently duringholidays when there are no patrols, which isalso when more new attempts to squat occur.Control teams intensify patrols afterwards,during which most demolitions are of illegalextensions and conversions, such as from akitchen to a bedroom.

Worldwide, many housing programmes haveattempted to encourage and facilitate theresidents of squatter areas to improve theirdwellings (de Souza, 1998). By contrast, theHong Kong government has consistently andstringently attempted to prevent squatters fromimproving the housing quality of theirdwellings, many of which are expected to persistindefinitely into the future (Smart, in press).Significant resources and much of the work ofsquatter control officers are devoted to this;indeed, improving one’s dwelling is one of theoccasions on which summary demolition canresult. For example, in August 1999, theSquatter Control Division (with a total staff of949) devoted 1461.16 work-days to patrols, 166to demolitions and 59 to emergencies (Figure1). In the same month, they demolished 758structures for development clearances anddestroyed 85 illegal structures or extensions.During 1998, 1,851 new structures andextensions were demolished, down from 2,632in 1997 and 3,696 in 1996 (Figure 2).

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With the privatisation drive within theHousing Authority, as of October 1999 layoffsand early retirement were to reduce theDivision by 130 positions. While prioritiesremain unchanged, units will be formed withdistrict-wide responsibilities, and the numberof workers accompanying a supervisor on apatrol reduced to one, whereas now there aretwo or three. The management of squatter

areas is based on a colour-coded classificationsystem. Red zones, those with a high rate ofillegal construction and close to places ofemployment, are patrolled daily; yellow zonestwice a week; and green zones once a week.Some areas with no squatter structures are stillpatrolled as green zones, that is, areas withaccess to roads and water. Supervisors areequipped with electronic wands that are

Figure 1. Deployment of housing officers (% work-days), August 1999.

Source: Operations and Redevelopment Division (1999).

Figure 2. Structures razed in control demolition, 1989-98.



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touched to buttons at different points alongpatrol routes, downloading the storedinformation to ensure that patrol teams covertheir assigned areas. Frontline squatter controlofficers spend much of their time walkingthrough the squatter areas. Good relationswith residents make their workaday activitiesless irksome. However, their primary concernis with their superiors. Allowing their authorityto be challenged makes it harder for them tomaintain control. While much of their time isspent walking through these areas, they arealso bureaucrats, and resolve conflicts withgreater or lesser success.

A squatter control patrol team leader whotook me on a walking tour demonstratedconsiderable practical local knowledge, havinggot to know and recognising most residentsand talking to anyone doing anything out ofthe ordinary. He pointed out, for example,that one house built of brick was covered upwith tin, a trick to circumvent the restrictionson improvements that only allow wornmaterials to be replaced with the same typeand in the same dimensions. If it is not possibleto tear down the illegal portions withoutundermining the integrity of the rest, the entirestructure may be demolished. There is acontinual negotiation and testing on bothsides of the squatter control/squatter residentdivide.

THE PRACTICE OF SQUATTERCLEARANCE

When a squatter area is scheduled forclearance and redevelopment, a different setof practices and techniques come into play.Clearances rely on the forms of controldescribed above. In turn, the nature ofclearance policies and practices has an impacton the everyday processes of control. Therule that denied eligibility for permanenthousing to those moving into a squatterstructure after 1984 stopped the flow of middle-class households into squatter areas in orderto “jump the queue” for public housing.

Squatter clearance before 1984The public beginning of clearance was madevisible by a “blitz” where many officials,supported by police and workers, sweptthrough an area designated for clearance. Theyregistered occupants, collecting informationon those not home at the time, and notifiedpeople of eviction. The clearance would havebeen planned for months beforehand, but keptsecret to prevent queue-jumping. Those notpresent during the registration could laterprovide evidence of residence, generallydocuments such as bills or mail addressed tothem at that location. Clearance officers hadmany techniques to ferret out enterprisingprospective public housing tenants thatestablished “shadow-residencies” by havingtheir mail sent to a friend who lived in a squatterarea, such as counting toothbrushes orteacups. Complex household arrangementsalso made clearance registration problematic.Patriarchal assumptions about “normal”Chinese families influenced officials’ decisionsabout who could “really” be a householdmember. For example, a wife who, subjectedto beating by her husband, had returned tolive with her parents was not accepted as ahousehold member because her “real” homewas elsewhere (Smart, 1992).

Registration was followed by anassessment of resettlement qualifications. Thetwo major variables were type of housing(such as newly-built permanent, older andlower quality permanent, temporary and transitcentre) and location – proximity to the squatterarea being strongly desired, while anywherein the greater urban area was usually accept-able; distant locations in the New Territorieswere particularly dreaded.

During the late 1970s and early 1980s,protests against clearances became common,and some of these prompted modifications inprevailing policies. In general, significantconcessions would not be made for protesterswho were currently involved in a clearance.Instead, prevailing policies would be imposedin a more or less consistent manner so that the

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impact occurred afterwards, couched as policychanges in response to issues raised in theprotests (Smart, 1992). Despite generaleligibility of all occupants of registeredstructures for resettlement, many were stillexcluded due to households characteristics,other than singleton households, or thosewhere the majority had not resided in HongKong for seven years. Some policy exclusionswere modified in response to resistance, butusually policy was modified to exclude otherswith even less political influence. In general,there seemed to be a tendency to avoidincreasing overall rehousing commitments. But,while resistance might lead to policy shifts, thereverse also obtained. Clearance policiesinfluenced the likelihood of protest against aclearance. They also determined which groupswere disadvantaged and might be angered byclearance policy and practices. The squatteroccupancy survey of 1984 and its associatedpolicies represent a sharp break in thesepractices.

Squatter clearance after 1984The shift in policy ushered in by the squatteroccupancy survey in 1984 was not arbitrary.

Instead, it was associated with greater controlover illegal migration facilitated by the 1984Sino-British Agreement to return Hong Kongto Chinese sovereignty in 1997 (Smart 2001),partially through the development ofcooperation between authorities on both sidesof the border. As fewer illegals made it acrossthe border, it became more feasible to end newsquatting, which was finally achieved after1985 (Figure 3).

The new policy was that only thoseoccupants registered in the 1984 survey andtheir dependents would be eligible forresettlement in clearances, although laterarrivals could still be accommodated intemporary housing. There was still one pointat which occupants of a squatter area receivedno resettlement at all: after the announcementof a clearance. People did still opt to buysquatter homes after this point, though, per-haps due to a government policy that no oneshould be left homeless by administrativeaction. Unregistered evictees are offeredplaces in a transit centre, representing a “trialby ordeal” for homeless status. The transitcentres are unpleasant and inconvenient

Figure 3. Squatter population, 1989-98.



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enough for it to be concluded that a personwho stays for three months must be reallyhomeless and, hence, usually transferred totemporary housing.

Despite poor conditions and the apparentlack of prospects, many squatters do not wantto leave their homes in squatter areas evenwhen they are given the option of rehousingin non-development clearances, such as of aslope vulnerable to landslips. Many pros-pective clearees choose to stay rather thanopt for permanent rental housing, even thoughgovernment engineers have declared the areadangerous. A number of reasons account forthis reluctance to move. In public housingthey will pay rent, whereas they already “own”their squatter dwellings, mostly with morespace and less constraints, for example, tohave a garden or at least some open outsidespace, and to keep animals and pets or takelodgers, none of which would be possible inpublic housing. There are also community tiesand attachments, especially for longerestablished residents.

A squatter resident serving on the localmutual aid committee stated that there is aconsiderable amount of under the table buyingand selling of squatter dwellings but that thegovernment does not want to know about it.One result has been the substantial populationincrease in the New Territories squatter areassince the 1984 survey; as some squattersmoved away, often into public housingthrough the Waiting List, others moved in. Inthe case of his area, which according toSquatter Control had 120 registeredhouseholds, when they were arranging for thenew joint mailboxes following the 1997 hand-over they discovered that there were actually203 households.

A significant recently effected policychange has excluded a further proportion ofthe squatter population from entitlement topermanent housing when developmentclearances occur. In 1998 it was decided toalso apply the public housing means test,

which is applied to those who obtain publichousing through the Waiting List, to allhouseholds affected by clearances. A briefcase study of the first clearance, in 2001, inwhich this rule was applied and the outcomesfor the residents of the area follows below.

Since 1984 the effectiveness of protests haswaned, the major constraints being the lack ofmedia attention and the low level of publicconcern for the plight of squatters (Yip, 1999).Other political changes, though, are providinga new venue in which dissatisfaction can beexpressed and resulted in some modificationsin clearance practices (Smart, 2001). Forsquatter clearances affecting over 1,000people, the Housing Authority decided that acustomer liaison group (CLG) should beestablished. Representatives of the Housing,Land, Social Welfare, Police and Home Affairsdepartments meet every two months withdelegates of concerned groups andrepresentatives of the clearees, selected by aballot arranged by the Housing Department.Considerable time is spent by senior officials,explaining and defending procedures anddecisions. In the Diamond Hill clearance in2000, the last for which a CLG was established,the process contributed to a substantial delayin the clearance schedule, but also a numberof concessions that applied to later clearances,including being rehoused within the greaterurban area to reduce the dislocationexperienced in urban resettlement. Still, onedelegate present at the CLG meetings said thatmany community representatives felt that theywere simply a place for officials to restatepolicies and did not see any concrete changes.By contrast, housing officers saw themselvesas flexible, within the constraints posed bypolicies. Clearly there was some sympathy andrecognition of the ways in which strongfeelings might complicate a clearance.However, there was also a strong belief thatconcessions, in part due to intervention bypoliticians, were encouraging further demands.These housing officers felt that the newprocess was making their job more difficult.They would have preferred prior practices

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where policies were upheld whateverhappened, allowing for some flexibility in theirinterpretation, and any revisions to beconsidered only after clearance.

The outcomes of this situation are thesubject of the case study of the most recentsquatter clearance in the next section. It shouldbe noted that there is a great deal of diversityin the social and physical fabric of differentsquatter areas, with the better built, if notmaintained, structures generally found insettlements that started prior to 1953. Thefeatures of Ho Gar Yuen cannot, therefore, begeneralised to all Hong Kong illegalsettlements.

INVERNESS ROAD SQUATTERAREA

The irregular settlement between InvernessRoad and Junction Road, the largest part ofwhich is referred to by residents as Ho GarYuen, was, until 17 July 2001, located only afew hundred metres from the site of the formerKowloon Walled City and the local adminis-tration under the Chinese Empire. When theNew Territories were leased to Britain in 1898,China’s jurisdiction was to have beenpreserved in this small area, but the Britishreinterpreted that provision of the Treaty andevicted the officials. However, they never tookover effective administration of the area, whichbecame an anomalous region where HongKong rules held even less sway than in thesquatter areas (Wesley-Smith, 1980). Itdeveloped as a squatter area completelycovered with buildings of more than 20 storeys,none of which conformed to buildingordinances. The area was a regular source ofconflict between London and Beijing untilafter the signing of the Sino-British Agreement,following which it was demolished.

Ho Gar Yuen means “the Ho family garden”,the site of their ancestral house which,according to members of the family who werestill resident at the time of the clearance, wasbuilt in the early years of the twentieth century.

The squatter area comprised a complex mixtureof well-constructed (primarily before 1953) butpoorly maintained concrete or stone structuresthat had been subdivided into residences formultiple households; more temporarystructures of wood and tin (constructed after1953); and clusters of business operations.There were 76 business premises, 21 of whichwere inactive at the time of the clearancesurvey and, thus, not eligible for “ex-gratiaclearance allowances”. A group of car repairshops lined the main thoroughfare, JunctionRoad, and largely obscured the existence of asquatter area behind them. Factories wereconcentrated on Inverness Road, a dead-endstreet accessible by truck.

The pre-clearance survey of 2001 registered502 households with a total population below1,000, so a CLG was not required to beestablished. Despite this, in the spring andsummer of 2001, four formal meetings werearranged with Housing Department officialsat the Chief Housing Manager level or above,and a lower level official met with communityrepresentatives about once a week. By 6 July,57 households were still refusing rehousingoffers. Reasons for this varied fromdissatisfaction with the temporary housing(offered to 53 of the 57) to attachment to theHo Gar Yuen area. One woman I interviewedwas very worried about disrupting herchildren’s education at a school across theroad, which has among the best test results inHong Kong. Resistance to temporary housingwas lower than it might otherwise have beensince, following concessions made during theDiamond Hill clearance, all but 16 of the HoGar Yuen families were to be rehoused in theextended urban areas.

As of 28 August 2001, 236 households hadbeen offered permanent public rental housingunits. Not all of these households were eligibleby registration on the 1984 occupancy survey;instead, 95 were eligible for rehousing throughthe general Waiting List for public housing oron compassionate grounds. Access throughthe Waiting List was increased because


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clearance households were given a one-year“boost” in the waiting period, anotherconcession won in the Diamond Hill clearance.Combined with the target to reduce the WaitingList to a maximum of three years, this enableda substantial number of those excluded fromeligibility for permanent housing (becausethey had moved in after 1984) to qualify.Another 84 households were assignedtemporary housing units. Of the other 336households (66.9 per cent) assessed as eligiblefor rehousing, five opted for theHomeownership Scheme and 11 for a cashhousing allowance in lieu of rehousing.

A total of 99 households (19.7 per cent)were classified as ineligible for rehousing, whileanother 67 (13.3 per cent) had incomes orassets above the comprehensive means testlimits. The primary reason for ineligibility wasnot having been in residence during the pre-clearance survey. By 7 July, of thosehouseholds who failed the means test, 23 hadaccepted housing arranged by the non-profitHousing Society, 15 had opted to buyHomeownership Scheme units, and five hadaccepted the offer of temporary housing, (butwould only be allowed to stay there for oneyear) and the remaining 24 households werestill in negotiations with the HousingDepartment. As of 28 August, the numberaccepting Housing Society units hadincreased to 35, but it was unclear what hadbecome of the rest. The highest income ofthose who failed the means test was a four-person household earning HK$40,719 permonth. Most others were one-personhouseholds, and the highest of their incomeswas HK$23,600 (the means test limit set for asingleton household is currently HK$6,200 permonth). The largest assets of HK$1,771,201were held by a two-person household. As Ihave argued elsewhere (Smart, 1992), thepopulation of Hong Kong’s squatter areas isfar from uniformly low-income, particularlythose who have been in residence for decades.

On 15 July, two days before the clearance, Iwalked through the area and discovered

groups of residents preparing bannersprotesting the clearance and the unfairness ofthe arrangements. These and the argumentsof those I talked with focused on thecompensations for the business undertakings.While most would have preferred to continueoperating their businesses, they had acceptedthat this could not be achieved and wereconcentrating on seeking improvedcompensation payments. A variety of specificissues arose, one of which concerned theclassification of car repair enterprises asworkshops rather than stores, which receivedonly half as much compensation per squarefoot. On the clearance day, “more than 100residents gathered at the front entrance to thevillage after blocking other entrances withtrucks and rubbish. Talks between them andHousing Department officers broke down at 1p.m. and police moved in to help” (South ChinaMorning Post, 19 July 2001). The site wascleared despite the public protest and is theplanned location of a 740-unit public housingestate by 2006.

CONCLUSION

The massive output of policy analyses farexceeds the quantity of studies on theimplementation of government policies. In aparallel sense, the practices of frontline stateofficials are understood much less than arepolicy formation processes. Most researchon forced eviction has concentrated either onthe political and policy contexts that generateand structure the displacement of people, oron assessing the consequences of suchevictions. I have attempted to contribute toour knowledge of the agencies and officerswho conduct the evictions and how these aremanaged as practical accomplishments.

Although space limitations have notpermitted a treatment of the literature, publishedevidence makes it clear that there is a complexand diverse interface between evictors andevictees in different contexts that may includeresistance, collusion, self-regulation, briberyand patron-client relationships (see Marris,

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1974; Leontidou, 1985; Smart, 1992; Varley,1998). Only by careful examination of thedynamics of face to face or, in some cases, faceto boot relationships between frontline officersand the groups that they are supposed tomanage, can we start to get a clear sense ofwhat is going on in these ambiguous spaces. Ipresent these Hong Kong cases not as typicalones but, rather, as illustrations of whatintensive field research might reveal aboutcomplex and ever-changing interfaces betweenagencies and populations that are displaced,as well as those who abide with its threat.

Roughly speaking, three main modalities candominate the process of eviction of groupsillegally occupying urban space: political,bureaucratic and judicial. The political modeemphasises confrontations mediated throughpower and the ability to construct coalitions ofsupport. Squatters may retain their hold onspace, or even obtain legal tenure through theircapacity to cause trouble or their utility tocertain political groups (e.g. as blocks of votesor political labour, embarassments to rivals, orshowcases of progressive policy). A politicalmodality dominated Hong Kong’s squatterregulation and clearance until 1953. Since then,a bureaucratic modality has emphasised thecreation of agencies to administer and control,although politics in the prior sense alsocontinued to operate. Bureaucratic agenciesmay tolerate illegal occupation or providecompensation or resettlement when residentsare evicted, but they are maintained as ex-gratia concessions, rather than entitlementsor rights. The result is that few issues or casessurrounding illegal settlements in Hong Konghave involved court cases or lawsuits, the mainarena of the judicial modality. Instead, the focusof conflict has been on administrative practicesand guidelines, mobilising public politicalsupport and, occasionally, militant force in orderto modify the management of squatter clearanceand resettlement.

One of the results of the shift in 1953 from apolitical to a bureaucratic modality was thecreation of the Resettlement Department,

which eventually metamorphised into theHong Kong Housing Authority, one of theworld’s largest providers of public housing.The dynamics set in play by the forcedevictions of illegal settlements in the 1950shave had a crucial impact on the subsequentdevelopment of Hong Kong’s society. It hasalso channelled the politics of squatter evictioninto one that is profoundly influenced bychanges in the nature of Hong Kong’s publichousing programmes, more so than by itselectoral politics or the decisions of its courts.

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Documents

Agents of Eviction: The Squatter Control and Clearance Division of Hong Kong’s Housing Department