Only six years ago, many young couples in Hong Kong had to get married before they could buy a subsidised flat or obtain a government housing loan.
The rules to exclude singles from housing benefits were changed after the Equal Opportunities Commission found that they were discriminatory.
Now, unbelievably, the Housing Authority wants to turn back the clock by preventing young, single people from applying for public housing units.
On Monday, it announced a number of proposals to stop singles aged below 35 from applying. These include: a straightforward ban; a ban on single people already living in public housing with their families; a quota system for young singles; and a scheme offering priority to older singles.
The move is blatant discrimination on the grounds of age and family status. But the Equal Opportunities Commission has said privately that nothing much can be done to stop it, since allocation of public housing is exempt from the Family Status Discrimination Ordinance. Also, there is no legislation in Hong Kong against age discrimination.
Housing officials said on Monday that young, single people had abused the system. According to their figures, in 1998-99, 21 per cent of the 26,400 new households waiting to be assigned public housing were single people. By 2004-05, 44 per cent of the 32,000 new households on the waiting list were single people.
These figures do not help officials explain their case; in fact they further expose their failure. Just what have they done in the past seven years to tackle the problem of this rise in single applicants?
