The 101-year-old 'street sleeper' who was found dead in a Yau Ma Tei alley as city temperatures fell to their lowest this winter had a rented room nearby but preferred to live on the street.
The Social Welfare Department and a welfare organisation said yesterday that the man, Kwok Chi-pan, had a room in Temple Street although many of the area's locals knew him as the man who had insisted on living in the alley near Woosung Street for years.
'He was a client of the Hong Kong Christian Service Family Networks, which offers welfare services in Yau Ma Tei,' a department spokesman said. 'Workers said they always tried to help him and to persuade him to move into a home for the aged or government housing but he kept refusing.'
The networks' Yau Tsim Integrated Family Service Centre said its workers had been in contact with Kwok regularly since August 2007 and had helped him get welfare comprehensive social security assistance in 2008. 'Since then he has depended on the CSSA rental allowance to rent a room in Temple Street,' Florence Kong, principal co-ordinator of the centre said.
'He declined social workers' advice to apply for placement at a home for the elderly or a public housing flat under the compassionate rehousing scheme.' Regarding funeral arrangement for Kwok, Kong said the centre would keep in close contact with police and help if required. The Welfare Department spokesman said it would also help if necessary.
On Tuesday morning, Kwok's body was found by a shop employee on a couch in the alley as temperature dropped below 10 degrees Celsius in urban areas.
