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.
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.
