Some Sham Shui Po District Councillors received enquiries from tenants of the transitional housing "Nan Cheong 220" in the district, stating that the two-year lease will expire in August and September next year, and the lease of the land will also end in December next year. The tenants I am worried that if I have not been assigned a public housing unit after the tenancy is over, I will go back to rent a "subdivided housing."
The incident has brought into question the role of transitional housing in improving the living environment of people waiting for public housing.
The Nanchang Street project began when the developer lent the land in the second half of 2017. After some preparations and construction, it was not until August last year that residents were arranged to move in.
As the land lease period will end in December next year, and the developer has already squeezed the land nearby, the neighborhood and district councillors estimate that the land and lease lease period will not be renewed.
At the beginning of 2018 when the Buildings Department approved the project plan, the waiting time for general public housing applicants was 5.1 years, but this has increased to 5.8 years by the middle of this year.
In other words, the tenants of Nanchang Transitional Housing have a high chance of failing to connect to public housing.
At the Sham Shui Po District Council meeting on Tuesday (November 9), representatives of the operating organization Tung Wah Group of Hospitals revealed that only about 20 households have been allocated or will be allocated public housing, that is, more than 60 households have to deal with the expiration of the tenancy agreement. Matters.
Transitional housing failed to connect with public housing cases or they are coming one after another
The example of "Nanchang 220" reflects the repeated failures of the government's housing policy.
Originally, it was because the authorities were seriously behind in the construction of public housing that the applicants’ promise of waiting for three years to be allocated housing could not be fulfilled. The original intention of setting up a transitional housing was to resettle the families in unsuitable housing.
On October 29, Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor visited the transitional housing project "Nanchang 220" at Nan Cheong Street, Sham Shui Po.
(Information Services Department)
The operating organization promised to do its responsibilities to arrange follow-up arrangements, such as close contact with the Hong Kong Council of Social Service, which is coordinating the transitional housing project, referral of tenants to other transitional housing projects, and planning of financial arrangements for the relocation. This is a helpless choice.
As the progress of public housing construction continues to lag behind, more and more tenants are living in transitional housing. In addition, many projects are borrowed by developers and the lease period is always limited. Examples of transitional housing tenants who may not be able to directly go to public housing in the future It is bound to continue to appear.
Don’t let the end of the transition house be too big
What is even more worrying is that even the construction of transitional housing by the government itself seems to be behind schedule, and it even postpones the full construction time to cover up the "finishing".
The government set a three-year target of 10,000 units in October 2019, including the construction and inclusion of existing units, and then increased the number to 15,000 in January last year. It also stated recently that "sufficient land has been found" to build more than 1.6 Ten thousand units.
However, just like the measurement of public housing, finding land does not mean that the transitional housing will be completed in time.
As of the end of last month, two years after the three-year period, only 1,306 units were completed, 4,415 units under construction will not be completed until early next year at the earliest, and nearly 10,200 units are still in the start of "consultation, procurement and/or tendering" Stage, the completion time must be later.
+3
Unexpectedly, the government’s old debt has not yet been cleared, and this year’s Policy Address has been anxious to increase the supply to 20,000, but only set a vague target for "the next few years."
It is difficult for the outside world to monitor the progress, leaving only the impression that the government has been procrastinating again and again.
There are tens of thousands of residents in Hong Kong who live in harsh environments and are waiting for public housing. The number of transitional housing is only a drop in the bucket.
In the situation where there are too many monks and porridge, the relocated households will compete with the new applicants, and the coordination of the two types of households with different NGOs will inevitably encounter trouble.
Transitional housing is destined to be a monster of housing policy. If measures are taken to delay the smooth operation of ideals and to temporarily improve the lives of grassroots families, its existence can be said to be better than nothing, but the reality seems to be the government using this as an excuse to delay the construction of public housing, or even release The resources are concentrated on the development of transition houses that they believe are "how fast and economical", but its progress is not completely satisfactory.
Moreover, if the transitional housing fails to enable the residents to transition to public housing, and even causes the residents to return to "subdivided housing," the residents will only be even more disappointed in the government and society.
From this point of view, the government should do its utmost to build public housing and fulfill the goal of first allocation of housing in three years.
Hotels and guesthouses are converted into transitional houses. It is difficult for emergency transition measures to cure the root cause. Long-term housing policies will eventually need to be changed. Transitional houses must be changed to meet the standards.