Hostel delay sees HKU foreign students looking for a home
HKU forced to subsidise off-campus lodging for 300 after delay in finishing halls of residence
The University of Hong Kong will have to subsidise more than 300 foreign students' off-campus lodgings until its new halls of residence are finished.
HKU is looking for short-term hostel accommodation in Chai Wan, Sai Ying Pun and Shek Tong Tsui.
The response to an earlier appeal to staff to give up a spare room for a "homeless" student was "not very good", according to student union president Dan Chan Koon-hong.
Two of the four blocks in the university's compound in Lung Wah Street in Kennedy Town will be ready next Thursday, in time for 970 students to move in for the start of the new academic term on September 17.
But the other two would not be ready until mid-September to late October, meaning 830 students would have to stay elsewhere, the union said.
Of those students, 500 were locals, while the rest were from the mainland or overseas, Chan said.