A pressure group yesterday spelled out the 'seven deadly sins' it accused the Government of committing in its housing policy last year.
The Society for Community Organisation said the first and biggest sin was to boost the private market by suspending the sale of Home Ownership Scheme (HOS) flats for 10 months from September, depriving people of the chance to buy subsidised flats.
The second was to fail to reduce rent when the amount paid by public rental tenants rose beyond the government-set guideline of 10 per cent of their average income, putting households in hardship.
The other government failures were: lowering in April the income and asset limits at which people can qualify for public rental housing; being too slow to expand a rental subsidy scheme for elderly people in private flats; failing to provide proper housing for 3,000 single rehabilitated mental patients; failing to rehouse dozens of cage-home families; and not providing enough flats for single public housing applicants.
About 60 people affected by the policies protested at Housing Authority headquarters in Ho Man Tin yesterday.
They used toy hammers to hit photos of Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa, Chief Secretary Donald Tsang Yam-kuen, Secretary for Housing Dominic Wong Shing-wah and Director of Housing Tony Miller.