The population of Hong Kong experienced a significant increase in the late 1940s and 1950s following the end of the Second World War and especially after the outbreak of the Chinese Civil War from 1945 to 1949, when large numbers of refugees fleed to Hong Kong. These influxes led to a serious housing shortage: many tong lau had been destroyed during the war, the housing supply was extremely limited and rents became very high. Arriving immigrants had little but to erect their own squatter huts or rent one to live in, and several large squatter camps soon sprang up in Sham Shui Po, including Tai Po Road Village, Pak Tin Village, Fuk Wah Village and Shek Kip Mei Village.

Squatter huts were very primitive and poorly equipped. A galvanised iron sheet usually served as the roof, but the majority of the structure was made of wood, and they were thus known locally as “wooden huts”. Even basic facilities were inadequate: there was no running water or electricity and only simple tools available to make a fire; the huts were crowded together, and the building materials used were flammable. Residents were vulnerable to the threats of flooding, landslides and fire. In December 1953, a massive fire broke out in the Shek Kip Mei squatter area that left about 40,000 people homeless. To resettle the residents, the government initially built rows of temporary interlinked two-storey bungalows, known as “Bowring Bungalows” after the then Director of Public Works, near the site of the disaster. The incident prompted the government to take an active approach in handling the squatter issue, clearing away the wooden huts and constructing resettlement areas to house squatters.