No more coffin homes: how Hong Kong families waiting for public housing can benefit from cheap, NGO-run subdivided units

Ho Hei-wah says having NGOs operate approved subdivided units will mean better-managed and inexpensive housing for Hong Kong’s underprivileged, and the government’s proposal is a welcome one

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Wong Chak-ming, 13, draws attention to the hot, suffocating conditions in his partitioned home in Sham Shui Po, on July 2. Photo: David Wong

Published: 3:23pm, 24 Jul 2017Updated: 8:11pm, 24 Jul 2017

Visiting families living in subdivided flats earlier this month, the new Secretary for Transport and Housing, Frank Chan Fan, pledged that the government will collaborate with NGOs to operate subdivided rental flats at below market price for underprivileged families. This is not an entirely new idea, as a few NGOs, including the Society for Community Organisation, have already been implementing social housing of a similar kind. But we commend the administration for thinking outside the box to address the housing problem.

Being allocated to public rental housing is the ultimate solution, but this takes time. Around70,400units of new public rental housing will become available in the next five years. But given the waiting list of nearly 280,000 households, or around half a million people, an annual provision of 14,000 new flats is far from sufficient.

Rooftop slums are a stark reminder of Hong Kong’s social and housing problems

Imagine a child who sweats through the summer, suffocating in a 60 sq ft room with a monthly rent as high as HK$3,600. He has to study, play and rest on his bed, infested with bedbugs and insects.

This absurdity originates from the dysfunction of the rental market. Some landlords grab the opportunity by taking a large flat and dividing it into several small cocklofts, or coffin-like bedspaces, and renting them out for three to five times the original rental rate (in per sq ft terms).

Why is Hong Kong housing so expensive?

Some property owners prefer to earn rent without spending time on management. This paves the way for property management agencies that make huge profits by dividing and renting the units.