Jake's View | Now we’re sowing the seeds of a good idea: make public housing occupants owners, not tenants

Secretary for Housing Frank Chan Fan maintained that the goal to build 280,000 public rental housing and subsidised flats for sale by 2027 had not changed even though there might be a change in the ratio of rental units and those for sale. -- SCMP, October 29

I think he has the right idea. The way to house more people in public housing is to sell them that housing, not rent it to them.

Let’s start here with a little known statistic; little known because it is rather embarrassing to the Housing Authority. Although the stock of public rental housing has grown by about 150,000 units since 1990, there are about 600,000 fewer people living in them than in 1990.

That’s right, the number of public rental flats has gone way up, but the number of people living in them has gone even further down. For every step forward, we have taken four steps back.

This shows up dramatically in the figures on the average household size in public rental housing. As the chart shows, the ratio has fallen from 4.4 persons per household in 1990 to only 2.8 persons at the end of 2016, a much bigger drop than in private housing.

Why has it happened? For the best stab at answering this question, go to Professor Richard Wong Yue-chim at Hong Kong University. He has talked and written about it more than anyone else I know, and has uniquely highlighted how public housing has made spouse abandonment convenient for socially irresponsible people.