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.

Fact of the Day: Public Housing Wait Gets Longer

The wait for public housing is now an average of 5.8 years

People waiting to be able to rent a public housing flat now have to wait 0.2 years longer at an average of 5.8 years, according to the Housing Authority.

Last year around 13,700 public rental flats were allocated, much fewer than the 26,400 in 2022. The Housing Authority said it was because there were fewer rental flats to allocate, the "lowest in recent years".

The government body explained it was due to construction delays, such as one accident in 2022 when a crane in Sau Mau Ping collapsed and killed three workers, causing other construction projects to be suspended for inspections.

Meanwhile, the average wait time for elderly one-person applications increased by 0.1 years to four years.

Nevertheless, the Housing Authority said more public housing flats were on the way in Tuen Mun, Tung Chung and the New Territories that would be completed in two years.

Dealing with the housing issue was among those mentioned by Chinese leader Xi Jinping when he visited Hong Kong in 2022.

"Currently, the biggest aspiration of Hong Kong people is to lead a better life, in which they will have more decent housing," Xi said at the time.

Interestingly the number of applicants for public housing has fallen in recent years, from 155,100 at the end of 2017 to 129,400 at the end of last year, and yet the wait has risen.

Hong Kong Policy Address A Buffet of Words

A record-long policy address with few highlights

Yesterday Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu delivered his policy address in the Legislative Council, which took him a record three hours and 22 minutes to deliver -- sitting down.

One person on X, formerly known as Twitter, compared this number to the statistics of runners in the 2023 Standard Chartered Marathon. It seems 377 runners were faster than Lee giving his speech.

CE supporters wore green ties and scarves

Another observation was that the pro-Beijing camp wore green neckties or scarves as a show of solidarity with the chief executive.

Some critics described the policy address as lacking focus, comparing it to an all-you-can-eat meal.

"It is like a buffet dinner, it needs a theme such as Tasmania Oyster or Argentinian steak to attract diners. If the investment theme is about everything, it is hard to attract investors," said Simon Lee, co-director of the International Business and Chinese Enterprise program at Chinese University.

Centrist lawmaker Tik Chi-yuen described the policies for the welfare sector as "putting old wine into a new bottle."

"It seems like the city leader copied and pasted welfare measures proposed by different parties and NGOs to his policy address. You cannot see a well-designed strategy, with timetable and priorities, presented inside the blueprint," he said.

Tik says Lee's speech on welfare had no strategy

One policy that shows how out of touch the Lee administration is, is the attempt to boost the city's birthrate by promising parents of newborns will be given a one-off amount of HK$20,000 and would be prioritised for subsidised housing (as long as they don't make more than HK$62,000 a month).

Compare this proposal with Singapore, which is handing out the equivalent of HK$62,000.

Does Lee not know how much it costs to raise a family, or how much rent is these days? HK$20,000 is a drop in the bucket and will hardly push the birthrate up...

Lee's Housing Solutions

Lee showing his policy address to the media yesterday

In his debut policy address, Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu said the government will build 30,000 units in the next five years, for the "Light Public Housing" scheme.

These are not apparently permanent housing units but temporary ones for them to move into for the time being.

Will he house people in units at Penny's Bay?

Is he referring to all those shipping containers that used to be used for Covid-19 isolation units at Penny's Bay?

There's around 9,000 units for the first year with no transportation logistics, but hey -- it's next door to the "Happiest Place on Earth", Disneyland!

Waving the Patriotic Flag

Flag fanatics decorated Kam Shek House in red flags

In the run up to the 25th anniversary of the Hong Kong handover, someone in two housing estates in Kwun Tong decided to be very patriotic and decorated the entire Lam Shek House and Kam Shek House with alternating Chinese and Hong Kong flags hanging on every level of above the courtyard.

Some flags were found to be desecrated

Of course the Bauhinia flag is markedly smaller than the Chinese one...

Pictures of it went viral on social media and yesterday the police received a report that 12 of the national flags at Lam Shek House were desecrated, some with black stains on the big stars, while one flag at the housing estate and another at Kam Shek House were stolen.

Some uniformed police collected the desecrated flags, putting them in plastic bags for investigation and no one has been arrested yet.

Eventually all the flags were taken down probably as a precaution.

This exercise in extreme patriotism in Hong Kong is a touchy subject to say the least. While residents accept that the city is a part of China, it isn't quite ready for the show of nationalism that mainlanders expect. 

The push for patriotism is overwhelmingly red

And the government's efforts in trying to shove patriotism down residents' throats isn't helpful either, fuelling further frustration. The 2019 protests are still raw in people's minds, and they are still trying to process what has happened in the last three years, particularly after the implementation of the national security law.

Forcing people to celebrate an anniversary that seems bleaker by the day is hardly something worth rejoicing about. And the red flags seem to inflame people even more.

At least all the flags were removed and maybe the mastermind will have learned his/her lesson.

But wait -- the Hong Kong police are adopting the "goose-step" used in China from July 1.

"To promote patriotism and enhance the awareness of national identity, the Hong Kong Police Force will fully adopt Chinese foot drills from July 1," the HKPF said in a statement.

HKPF will debut its goose-stepping style July 1

Last year the People's Liberation Army trained Hong Kong police cadets the goose-step style where soldiers march without bending their knees.

Sounds painful... on the knees!

In the meantime it's been reported the two senior government officials who caught Covid-19 a few days ago have now tested negative.

Eric Chan Kwok-ki and Erick Tsang Kwok-wai have started to test negative, and if they have two more negative tests, then they could possibly attend Friday's ceremony at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. 

The government will have the final say if Chan and Tsang can attend in person. 

And still no word on Xi Jinping coming or not... 

Sole Candidate Reveals Election Platform

Lee finally shows off his election platform today

The sole candidate running for the next Chief Executive of Hong Kong finally unveiled his platform just days before the election on May 8.

John Lee Ka-chiu promised to strengthen governance, boost land and housing supply, improve Hong Kong's competitiveness, and build a caring society.

Lee has made requisite visit to grassroots families

Housing is a top issue for Beijing and now it's up to Lee to tackle it, just like every other chief executive has since Tung Chee-hwa in 1997 and they have all failed abominably.

How is Lee really going to break the developers' small circle and make them build more public housing remains to be seen, as no other leader has managed to make them heel? The supply of land is tight and that's what makes property values so high. No one wants to see them plunge. 

Meanwhile in his platform, the former chief secretary proposes a new scheme that would allow people to move into new public housing estates earlier, even when the surrounding infrastructure is not fully ready. He said that could shorten people's wait times by about a year.

But who wants to live in a completed building and yet there are no public transportation? How are these people supposed to get around? Walk? Bike? Maybe Lee has forgotten these low-income residents can't afford a car and parking space...

China is more developed at the border than HK

Lee has also proposed a pilot scheme to help those living in subdivided flats by giving them job training and support to some 1,000 school children... what that means is not clear, but what kind retraining are they talking about? If it's just to make a few dollars more per hour, it's not going to help these families significantly. He claims this program, which would run for two to three years would help tackle generational poverty.

That sounds like really short term help -- getting people out of poverty takes years of support. This is where NGOs and grassroots groups help low-income people with long-term solutions, but many of these organisations are worried about possibly violating the national security law if they do a better job than the government.

If elected Lee says he will review and plan for the Northern Metropolis and Lantau Tomorrow Vision schemes, which means current Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor's proposals could be further tweaked, which is a good exit if he needs one. While further integrating with the mainland makes sense for Hong Kong, how is this going to work exactly? We hope the latter idea will be scrapped for environmental reasons.

Lee says national education will be strengthened

He is also keen on further enhancing national education for students. This is expected, as it is an order from Beijing. How can this be a taken seriously as part of his platform?

How about some new exciting ideas, John? 

Without a viable competitor, how is the public supposed to consider Lee a good candidate?

Oh I forgot -- we're not voting -- only 1,500 Beijing-approved are.

Surely he's going to do better than 689 and 777 when Lee already has more than 700 nominations...