The economy continues to improve and citizens are homeless?

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Written by: Commentary Editing Room

2020-12-27 07:00

Last update date: 2020-12-27 07:00

The Hong Kong Council of Social Service (HKCSS) on Wednesday (23rd) announced the biennial "Hong Kong Social Development Index 2020", which assesses the housing, family unity, environmental quality, culture and entertainment, political participation, personal safety, recreation, and sports. The latest performance in the fields of health, economy, public security, civil society, education, internationalization, and technology. The results found that the development of Hong Kong has continued to be unbalanced for more than two decades since its return. The sub-indexes in the fields of economy, technology, and internationalization have increased rapidly However, the people's livelihood-related index has developed slowly and even showed signs of regression.

The Social Council Index takes 1991 as the base year (index=100), and the overall social development index in 2018 is 227, which is 21 points higher than in 2016. The economic sub-index has steadily increased by 172 points since 1998 and became the best performing area , And the technology and internationalization sub-indexes also rose by 483 and 364 points respectively.

The results show that Hong Kong's economy has been "prosperous" in the past 20 years, but what lies behind it is the unbalanced distribution of economic results and the inability of social welfare policies to achieve the secondary distribution of social property.

Li Sheng and Mrs. Li have been married for more than 30 years, and the two have been dependent on each other.

(Photo by Li Zetong)

Economic performance ranks first in housing quality

Turning to the family unity and housing sub-indexes, we can see that they scored low scores of -107 and -314 respectively. This means that while Hong Kong’s economic development is steadily rising, the quality of life of the grassroots citizens is against economic development. It has deteriorated rapidly, and the "housing" index has been declining since 2002 and fell to a negative number after 2010, becoming the worst performing area.

The economy of Hong Kong has improved, but the living conditions of the people have been much worse than before. Such abnormal economic development is nothing new. However, the government seems to be indifferent for many years, and the living conditions of the people are even more worrying.

The backlog of housing problems has not been resolved for many years. On the contrary, it has to go from bad to worse. Insufficient living space and rising rent costs will naturally cause the deterioration of family relations, structural poverty and other social problems, such as the small living area of ​​a family. Conflicts or negative emotions between family members can easily have nowhere to escape, leading to domestic violence tragedies that abuse spouses, children or the elderly. The number of these cases is the index of the family unity index with the same low scores, which shows the housing problem It may also affect family relationships.

In any case, the HKCSS index once again reflects that the housing problem has become the crux of the deep-seated conflicts in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong government pays attention to economic development while also taking care of the living of the grassroots, trying to improve grassroots income and dealing with housing problems, including the recovery of brownfield sites and developer stocks as soon as possible The construction of public housing on farmland and the construction of a safety net for life protection from the social welfare system ensure that the grassroots should have the most dignified life.

Faced with the housing problem that has dragged down the lives of Hong Kong people for many years, the authorities must learn from the pain and let the social problems continue to deteriorate.

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