A GENERAL GRASP OF PUBLIC HOUSING IN HONG KONG

Hong Kong’s public housing started in the 1950s because of the big fire in Shek Kip Mei.

Today 61 years has passed since the big fire. In the past years, the function of the public housing shifted from a mere emergency action that aims at resettling people who became homeless in the fire to a social welfare system to help the poor people. The public housing system allows eligible household with limited income to have the chance of renting government-commissioned flats with a much lower price than the market and is an important infrastructure to address the housing problems in Hong Kong.

The public view on the system is two-folded.

On one hand, we see the number of public housing increases at a rate of 10 thousand per year. Specialized bodies including the Housing Authority were established to take charge of the development. Today the PH housing forms a network that covers most area of Hong Kong as you can see in the map.

Besides the numerical increase, the government also pays attention to improving the living environment. The average living space per person increases from 11.5 sq.m in 2004 to 13 sq.m in 2014. And the housing type develops from single blocks to a more urban scale that contains green environments, retail outlets, recreational facilities, community facilities and public spaces.

Besides, different policies including the Home Ownership Scheme and the Elderly Scheme are implemented in seek of manifold solutions to the issue.

On the other hand. There remains a huge lag of supply compared to the applicant number and the average waiting time for an applicant to be housed in a PRH unit is 3 years, not including those who are rejected by the scheme. The government is thus questioned for its low efficiency of the bureaucracy and not doing its best to really solve the problem. Criticism goes that the government is having a hard time trying to balance the welfare system and the capitalist economy, and in most cases, it is the capitalist system that prevails.

Besides doubt on the government, people living in a PH units is getting stigmatized at the same time. They are labeled as uneducated, poor, of lower class in the public perception. For all the stigmatization, the paradox comes that there are still a large number of people who want to apply for a public housing unit and see it as a way to reduce the financial burden (refer to the statistics). Some of them even get their salary deducted in order to meet the upper limit of the income requirement.