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Pride and Hong Kong’s patriarchal society mean men are less likely to seek help than women when they lose their home. Photo: Edward Wong

Homeless in Hong Kong: why men account for nearly nine in 10 street sleepers

  • Pride and Hong Kong’s patriarchal society mean men are less likely to seek help than women when they lose their home
  • Women are generally more willing to talk and try to understand how they can improve their situation
Wellness

Living on leftovers, 69-year-old Wong has been sleeping on the streets of Hong Kong for more than a year.

Wong, who requests anonymity, moved to the city from China’s southern Guangdong province when he was in his 20s, amid a wave of migration to the city. He worked in temporary jobs, but gambled away his savings.

Homeless in Hong Kong: life on a footbridge

Social workers have offered Wong clothes and other necessities, and he is eligible to apply for public housing, but he has turned his back on all opportunities to get help.

“Even if the government offers me a house, I don’t need help. The government should give flats to people who are younger and more worthy,” Wong says.

Ng Wai-tung is a social worker who works for the homeless in Sham Shui Po. Photo: Winson Wong

Wong is among the men who account for nearly 90 per cent of the city’s homeless population, according to data from the Society For Community Organisation (SoCo).

The NGO put the number of registered street sleepers in Hong Kong at 1,127 in 2017; the number of unregistered people sleeping rough is not known.

The reason for the wide gender gap, according to SoCo community organiser Ng Wai-tung, is that homeless men tend to be too proud, and ashamed to ask for help.

May, a homeless woman who has suffered mental health problems and does not wish to reveal her full name, has seen how mental health issues can put homeless women in danger. Photo: Antony Dickson

“When we distribute fliers to the homeless, men will say, ‘Giving me these is useless. You can’t help me’ … Men are reluctant to see us and are usually very defensive,” the social worker says.

“Some even deny they are street sleepers, although they’re sitting on flattened cardboard boxes. They say they are just hanging out at midnight enjoying the cool weather, and ask us to give the fliers to others. But we see them all the time late at night in the same spot, so we wonder if that’s true. This shows how resistant they are about asking for help.”

Women are generally more willing to talk and try to understand how they can improve their situation, Ng adds.

The reluctance of men to accept help may be down to Hong Kong’s deeply patriarchal society, says Dr Brenda Alegre, a professor of gender studies at the University of Hong Kong (HKU). The way society regards the homeless as “losers” or “failures” adds to the problem.

Hong Kong University lecturer Brenda Alegre. Photo: Kylie Knott

“Hong Kong has an imperial and colonial past. Both eras were very much patriarchal,” she says. That means men believe it’s their job to provide for their families, she says.

“Many men … have too much pride to seek help from their family and friends, or even the government, in fear of being viewed as unmasculine,” Alegre adds.

Lok, a 60-year-old former drug user, separated from his wife three years ago. He moved out and slept on the streets for three months, before borrowing money from SoCo to pay a deposit on a subdivided flat. He is collecting social security, but it’s just enough to cover his rent.

High Hong Kong rents and long public housing queues push more to homelessness

Lok says he cannot apply for a public housing flat because his wife is already living in one.

Even after separation, many men want to shoulder their family responsibilities, such as trying to be a “good father” or a “good husband”, Ng says.

Ng says: “Some men will not apply for public housing after a divorce, which was actually just a ‘separation’ on paper. If they originally had a four-person [public housing] unit, the family would have to move to a smaller one after the couple’s divorce. As men consider family their responsibility, they don’t get divorced so as not to affect their spouse and offsprings’ living conditions.”

May is a committee member of Concord Mutual-Aid Club Alliance, which fights for the rights of people with mental disorders. Photo: James Wendlinger

According to Wong Hung, an associate professor of social work at Chinese University of Hong Kong, women are better equipped to tackle uncertainties on the home front because they tend to be better at establishing interpersonal relationships.

“Women usually have more friends than men, so they can utilise their social network and stay with their friends to avoid the problem of high rent” – a leading cause of homelessness.

Homeless in Hong Kong: a cycle of despair for evicted street sleepers

“Men usually have fewer friends and are not willing to ask for help, so they are more prone to becoming homeless,” Wong says.

However, social worker Ng says an increasing number of women are becoming homeless, and street sleeping puts women at risk of assault. According to a 2018 report by the organisation, more than 75 per cent of homeless women become so-called McRefugees, sleeping in 24-hour fast-food restaurants such as McDonald’s, which are relatively safe shelters.

Homeless women often take shelter in 24-hour fast-food restaurants. Photo: Antony Dickson

According to a 2015 report by HKU, half of the local homeless population suffer from mental illnesses and 71 per cent have a lifetime history of such issues. Mood disorders are the most prevalent, according to the study. Others include disorders stemming from alcohol or drug abuse, psychosis, anxiety and dementia.

May, a homeless woman who has suffered mental health problems and does not wish to reveal her full name, has seen how this can put homeless women in danger.

“Some women with [mental health] issues are taken advantage of on the streets, like being assaulted. I once saw a homeless woman taking all her clothes off … I couldn’t help her. I could only call the police,” says May, who is a committee member of Concord Mutual-Aid Club Alliance, which fights for the rights of people with mental disorders.

Ng is urging the government to increase the number of hostel or shelter places for homeless, and especially for women.

Some women with [mental health] issues are taken advantage of on the streets, like being assaulted. I once saw a homeless woman taking all her clothes off.
May

Bottle Shiu Ka-chun, social worker, activist and lawmaker for the Social Welfare functional constituency, raised the issue in the Legislative Council last year, but Ng says there has been no progress.

The government provided 20 additional subsidised hostel or shelter places in 2016-17 – five of which were for women. Together with the 132 places for women at NGOs, the number of spaces available for them stands at 163.

Ng is also seeking to extend the length of a homeless person’s maximum regular stay at homeless shelters to one year – policy currently limits it to six months – to help both homeless men and women.

Social workers are pushing for more shelter options because homeless people have higher mortality and morbidity rates than the general public, according to the 2015 HKU study. The study also found that only 40 per cent of Hong Kong’s street sleepers with mental health issues had undergone psychiatric assessment, and only 13 per cent had received psychiatric care at the time.

Researchers from HKU found that there are “intrinsic barriers” in the local health care system that prevent the homeless from receiving mental health services. Photo: Antony Dickson

The HKU researchers pointed out there are “intrinsic barriers” in the local health care system that prevent the homeless receiving mental health services, which leads to cases of prolonged untreated psychosis. Involuntary treatment is rare, and only undertaken if patients are determined to be a potential danger to other people.

Close collaboration between community psychiatric teams and social workers with flexible tactics is essential, the study concluded. 

The lonely life of the McSleepers, the poor who call McDonald’s home

May, of the Concord Mutual-Aid Club Alliance, says not all homeless patients are motivated to negotiate with the government for rehabilitation services. She says the loneliness and isolation they feel means they are just after someone to listen to them.

“Some [homeless] people support our cause, but some might think otherwise. Some have said to me that instead of spending time on campaigns, they would prefer me to [just] listen to them or go and watch a show with them. That can already help them,” she says.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: In a spiral of despair
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