A culture of entitlement in public flats

About 100 people protested against the rent rise, the maximum allowed by law and the highest rise since 1997, at the [Housing A]uthority's Ho Man Tin headquarters yesterday ... The demonstrators, from different political parties and concern groups, called the authority a 'bloodsucker' and some burned banners.

SCMP, May 23

Let me define bloodsucking for you as understood by these demonstrators. Bloodsucking is an average rent of HK$1,248 per month for a Housing Authority rental flat.

That's right, just HK$1,248 a month. That's the figure for the financial year to March 2012, give or take a few cents for the difference between budget and final result. It is not HK$1,248 a day, which would still be less than a good number of people pay in the private sector, but HK$1,248 a month. The authority is a bloodsucker.

I must tell you, however, that I see red here as well. I see it in the accounts. They are in the red. The operating cost of keeping these rental flats in shape (lift maintenance, paint, plumbing repairs, etc) exceeds their rental income by about HK$1 billion a year.

But the authority has not done much in recent years to narrow this gap; quite the opposite. As the chart reveals, average public housing rents are 20 per cent lower than they were in 1997. They were reduced even while the general trend of consumer prices was steadily up.

Those missing sections of the line, by the way, represent months of complete rent forgiveness, a regular practice in recent years. Why don't you ask your landlord for one, too, and see what he says.