The View | It is time to empower welfare housing tenants to rent out part or all of their flats
Unleashing market forces within the public housing sector would mean a step towards privatising the public housing stock and refocusing public housing away from handouts and towards ownership
The people of Hong Kong may have different views about many issues, but everyone agrees that the housing shortage is our biggest domestic problem.
Many think the problem can only be resolved in a fundamental way by increasing housing supply. But such relief will take time. It takes over 10 years to reclaim land and develop residential flats, and nearly 10 years to convert agricultural land to residential use.
Even among those favouring more building, there are differences about what kind of housing should be built. Some groups believe the government should build more public rental housing units to benefit the least well-off who have suffered most from the severe housing shortage.
Others worry about the vanishing hopes of the middle class for home ownership and want government to build more subsidised public flats.
Still other groups want government to control rents and socialise housing supply more widely.
All these groups to varying degrees advocate for the interests of their constituencies. But we need a more macro perspective to help bring effective relief to our severe housing shortage.
