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After 11-year wait, Lap-tak has a place to call home

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MR Ip Lap-tak, the severely mentally handicapped adult who was unable to find a place in a residential home for 11 years until the South China Morning Post ran a series of articles about him last year, is now in his permanent home.

Mr Ip, 28, was the first of 20 residents to move into the Bradbury Siu Hong Home, above the Shing Mun Reservoir in Tsuen Wan.

He was one of more than 700 severely mentally handicapped adults who had been waiting for more than 10 years to get into a home when the Post published the series of articles in connection with a public consultation on the Green Paper on Rehabilitation.

The then director of social welfare, Mr Michael Cartland, took a personal interest in the case and pledged to get Mr Ip into a home.

The task was simplified when the executive director of the Society of Homes for the Handicapped, Mr Stephen Chan Siu-yuen, offered him a place in the society's care and attention home, which was due to open in November last year.

The offer made it easier for Mr Cartland to get the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals to give Mr Ip a temporary home at Tai Tung Pui in Tuen Mun and relieve the burden on his mother.

Mrs Wong Cheung-tai had been unable to leave her son's side since he suffered brain damage in a traffic accident at the age of six.

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