Don’t leave burden of social housing to Hong Kong’s NGOs, government urged amid notorious wait for public flats
- Community projects in which families share flats at heavily subsidised rents provide much needed respite from alternative of subdivided homes
- Social groups hope, however, that authorities can be more proactive, especially in helping them navigate property management
Wu Xiaoping did not have a good night’s sleep during the three years she spent with her teenage daughter in an 80 sq ft subdivided flat in Aberdeen, Hong Kong.
“There were always strange men lurking around, giving us looks. And whenever they smoked, it was suffocating,” recalls Wu, 51.
Everything they needed to get by was crammed into their tiny space: a bed, bathroom facilities and a stove. There were days when the air conditioner malfunctioned, and the two would sit up in bed, unable to sleep in the stifling heat. Preparing their own meals was almost impossible: they had no refrigerator, and cooking smells lingered in their tiny space for days, even weeks.
Wu is a Hongkonger by marriage. She moved with her daughter, Jane (not her real name) now 18, to the city from Dongguan after her husband, a construction worker and the family’s sole breadwinner, died from a fall in 2015.
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They came over so Jane could attend a public school and they would have access to government financial help and public housing.
Jane had given up her hukou – a mainland household registration account – in favour of a Hong Kong identity, and could not attend a public school in Dongguan. Wu, a housewife, could not afford to send the girl to a private school, and felt they had no choice but to move to Hong Kong.
Although it has been nearly six years since her husband applied for a government flat so that the family could live together, Wu is still in the queue for one.
So mother and daughter had to make do in their subdivided flat while they waited.
To make ends meet, Wu juggled odd jobs at restaurants and wet markets.
According to the latest official data, the average waiting time for public housing in Hong Kong has risen to a record 5.5 years for general applicants, who include families and single elderly applicants. More than 146,000 general applicants and around 108,000 non-elderly individual applicants are currently in line for a government flat.
Hoping to provide relief to those in the queue and people living in undesirable conditions, the Hong Kong Council of Social Service (HKCSS) launched the Community Housing Movement in 2017, backed by The Community Chest of Hong Kong and the Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development Fund.
Community housing, or social housing, is widely practised in countries like the United States, Britain and the Netherlands, and entails building or sourcing available vacant flats to rent out temporarily to disadvantaged people.
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Under the HKCSS scheme, 247 vacant units have been rented to 271 families, totalling more than 700 people, most of whom share the flats.
Rent is capped at around 25 per cent of the tenant’s income, or the maximum rental allowance for recipients of the government’s Comprehensive Social Security Assistance, which ranges from HK$1,885 for a single person to HK$6,610 for families of six or more.
The units are operated by nine social welfare organisations, including The Lok Sin Tong Benevolent Society, Kowloon; Society for Community Organisation; Salvation Army; and the Aberdeen Kai-fong Welfare Association (AKA), which also provide residents with much-needed customised social support.
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However, social welfare organisations need more government support to make community housing work in the long run, the HKCSS says.
“It’s difficult for NGOs to take on community housing all by themselves because they’ve got day-to-day social services to run as well,” project director Charles Ho Chun-kit adds.
Wu and her daughter are among 25 families who have moved into 16 units owned by the Chinachem Group on Wah Fu Road on Hong Kong Island, the scheme’s latest project operated by the AKA.
Families with similar backgrounds are paired to share a flat, and get to meet before they move in together.
More than just a bigger home
Wu and her daughter moved into their airy 400-sq ft flat in October 2018, and share a living room, kitchen and bathroom with another single mother and her 12-year-old daughter.
The rent of around HK$3,800 a month is almost half the amount Wu paid for their subdivided flat. Her daughter attends a secondary school in the neighbourhood.
“I was so excited, I couldn’t sleep!” Wu says of her first night in the new flat. “I can now stir-fry our favourite spicy dishes, and not have to walk up six floors to get home because we have a lift now.”
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With a new flatmate to chat with, Wu says she also feels less lonely. But that is not the only reason her social life has turned around: the AKA organises regular meetings for residents to get to know one another, with celebratory activities for festivals such as Tin Hau’s Birthday, and encourages them to be volunteers and give back in any way they can.
“Everyone has their own strengths,” says AKA senior manager and registered social worker Florence Cheng Kit-cheng. “We hope to help residents discover theirs and improve their sense of ability, and eventually gain the confidence they need to tackle future challenges.”
We hope to help residents discover their strengths and improve their sense of ability
This, Charles Ho says, is also why residents are required to pay rent. “We want to encourage them to use this respite to develop a sense of responsibility for their own lives, instead of relying on social welfare providers,” he says.
Wu visits elderly who live alone, keeping them company, and says she enjoys listening to the “inspiring stories” of the elderly. “We’re not just providing companionship to them, but we’re also benefiting from their insights.”
By taking part in activities such as hiking, junk trips, regular gatherings, communal farming and more, Wu has made many new friends.
“When we lived in a subdivided flat, nobody showed concern for us. We had no one. Now, we know we’re not alone,” she says. “I’m so touched, I’m getting shivers down my spine!”
When we lived in a subdivided flat, nobody showed concern for us. We had no one. Now, we know we’re not alone
Cheng says community housing provides residents with a peer support network.
“We’ve had mothers who leave their children with other mothers when they have something to do. This wasn’t something many could do when they were living in subdivided flats, where people were moving in and out all the time and it was hard to trust strangers,” she explains.
AKA has a social worker to track the well-being of residents, some of whom struggle with mental health issues and family problems resulting from the lack of adequate housing and personal space.
Wu used to have a strained relationship with her daughter, who was not happy about their living conditions and complained that her peers looked down on her. That has changed.
“She’s a lot happier and would tell me what she’s up to at school,” Wu says. “Living here has definitely improved our relationship.”
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Wu remains worried that she and her daughter will have to move out by August 2021, when the project comes to an end.
“Where will we go if we still haven’t been assigned public housing by then? We may have our own place now, but we still don’t dare to buy too much stuff because we worry we might have no place to go after the lease ends.”
All projects under the Community Housing Movement will end within the next three years. Keeping the movement alive beyond that, according to Ho, would require greater involvement from the government.
While those involved applaud the move, they say how the government allocates its resources is key to improving the efficiency of working with landlords, daily operations, and, eventually, making more social housing available.
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One of the greatest challenges is persuading landlords to join the scheme and lease their vacant units at a lower rate, Ho says.
He hopes the government will appoint an intermediary to source, renovate and assign units for social welfare organisations as social service groups like the HKCSS are “not familiar with construction” and property management issues.
“When we first started the project, we had to invest in a lot of human capital to navigate these areas,” Cheng adds. “We get government funding for social workers and other direct services for residents, but daily operations are also essential to the community housing experience.”
“It’s not just about the hardware, but also about enhancing residents’ social relations and quality of life,” Ho notes.
Urban studies professor Yip Ngai-ming of City University believes the process could be made easier if the government provides landlords with more incentives, such as tax allowances.
He thinks social welfare organisations have an important part to play, but the process would be more efficient and cost-effective if the government, as the biggest landowner, allocated land resources for social housing.
“The current public housing policy works, but it doesn’t address social problems residents might face,” he says. “Community housing can solve part of the problem, but when NGOs have to source for bits of real estate here and there, it’s just inefficient.”
