When Your Goal in Life is Public Housing

Some young people climb housing ladder by public housing

Young Hong Kong people continue to "lie flat" by making it their goal to get into public housing, even taking lower-paying jobs or adjusting their salary on the application to be eligible.

Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu has disapproved of these tactics, telling them to chase their dreams instead.

"If you waste your possibilities and your dreams for a public housing unit, I believe that [young] people will regret it. For a lot of people, their success today is created from their own struggle and their own hard work," he said.

Lee says aim for public housing is "inappropriate"

"The final result of what they achieve [with hard work] is better than what they imagined in the first place."

He said that instead of working hard, Lee noted some young people have deliberately adjusted their income to be eligible for public housing, and he called this "inappropriate".

"Having a roof over your head is important, but one should not waste their development potential and opportunities simply for a public housing unit," he said.

"That's because it is possible that your final results and achievement will be a hundred times or even unlimited times greater than what that unit would give you."

Does Lee know how much a flat costs these days? A tiny 300 sq ft one-bedroom flat is at least HK$5 million. Those who can afford to buy one have wealthy parents who have either given them a down payment or have bought a flat outright for them.

HK tops list for least affordable homes

If they don't have a rich family, the next option for a young person is to try to get a public housing flat. When they get one, they can rent it for a few years and save up money to buy a place. 

The government is not doing enough to help young people get their foot in the door of the housing market, and Lee is chastising them for not chasing their dreams? When people have housing, then they feel secure to focus on their work, get married, have a family and so on. But if they can't even get a roof over their heads because it is so far beyond their reach, they either give up and live with their parents, or they are "ambitious" by trying to get a public housing flat. 

According to Demographia, in 2023, the least affordable market in the English-speaking world was Hong Kong, followed by Sydney, and Vancouver in third place. 

Singapore has the highest homeowner rate at 89 percent, then Ireland with 70 percent and Canada at 67 percent. Hong Kong was at the bottom at 51 percent.

Perhaps Lee and his administration should look at these numbers and wonder why its homeownership rate is so low compared to Singapore? If he wants to improve people's livelihood that would be a great place to start.