bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

moreOnThisArticles

urlAlias

commentCount

sponsorType

authorLocations

authors

paywallTypes

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

socialHeadline

headline

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

publishedDate

additionalInfoBoxes

images

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

createdDate

sponsor

factSheets

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

copyrighted

customTimezone

liveContents

SCMP Reporter

FOUR more hostels for the mentally handicapped are to be opened in housing estates although residents have not yet been notified of the plans, the assistant director of social welfare said yesterday.

  Meanwhile, Tung Tau Estate residents yesterday petitioned the New China News Agency and vowed to fight for the abolition of the hostel planned for Kwai Tung House. Police are still being deployed to patrol the hostel site and protect workers.

  The assistant director of social welfare, Mr Anthony Chan Wai-kwan, said about 30 per cent of hostel places for the mentally handicapped would be built in public housing estates and the ratio would gradually increase.

  The sites picked by the Social Welfare Department included one on Hongkong Island, one at Tai Po and two on estates at Tuen Mun.

  The precise position of each hostel was yet to be confirmed by the Housing Department, but officials were determined to push ahead with the projects and begin work before the end of the year.

  But the Social Welfare Department was confident it would be able to lobby support from local residents for the projects despite the recent strong resistance put up by Wong Tai Sin residents against a hostel being built in their neighbourhood, Mr Chan said.

  The Tung Tau Estate residents have vehemently opposed the construction of a hostel in Kwai Tung House since December and clashed with police and workers, delaying the project.

  ''Initial resistance is understandable and inevitable, particularly because the Kwai Tung hostel is the first project to be found in established communities,'' Mr Chan said.

  The new hostel was part of a five-year plan to cater to the needs of mentally handicapped people.

  Mr Chan said officials would start lobbying concerned district boards, area committees and even mutual aid committees once the four sites were agreed by the Housing Department.

  ''As pre-occupation consultation was impossible in these estates, we appeal to residents to sympathise with the mentally handicapped people,'' he said.

  He called for the residents to sympathise with the parents of the mentally handicapped who would be placed in the hostels.

  The parents were usually old and too physically weak to look after their children.

  Mr Chan also called for the residents to look at places where similar hostels had already been established.

   ''The public can see for themselves the examples of San Chui Estate in Tuen Mun and Cheung Hong Estate in Tsing Yi where residents had first opposed rehabilitation facilities there, but later changed their attitude, with some even volunteering to work with the handicapped people,'' he said.

  Meanwhile, the Hongkong Association for the Mentally Handicapped has offered to reduce the size of its planned hostel in Kwai Tung House in a second concession to protesting residents.

  The association agreed yesterday to give up about 13 square metres of space from its 671-square-metre hostel to make room for a larger mutual aid committees office, or 28 square metres for the residents.

  It agreed earlier to hide the hostel entrance from the building's lift lobby in a bid to reduce residents' opposition to its project of providing 40 places for moderately and severely mentally handicapped people.

  In addition, the Social Welfare Department has specially favoured the Kwai Tung House residents by agreeing to finance the construction of extra toilet facilites and fire escapes in their mutual aid committees office.

  The Housing Department has not yet approved the association's offer due to officials' reluctance to breach its general policy in granting a maximum space of 20 square metres for a mutual aid committees office in any estate block.

  Mr Chan said he would persuade senior housing officials to give the unprecedent approval despite admitting that it might set ''very bad example'' in forthcoming projects.



Four more hostels set for estates