Chai Wan Factory Estate's last tenant has hope of new flat

The 74-year-old tenant who is refusing to leave a factory block that is being converted into flats may soon have a new home.

Tong Kwok-cheung was not planning to leave the building when his tenancy expired yesterday, but if things go his way he will not be there for long. Last Friday he was visited by two Social Welfare Department officers who helped him apply for a public rental flat - after years of waiting.

Tong's family came to Hong Kong from Guangzhou in the 1950s and started a paper-lantern business in Sai Wan Ho.

When the government resumed the site where their business was established in the 1960s, it offered both to relocate the family's factory to the Chai Wan Factory Estate and give them a public flat nearby.

They moved the firm but they never got the flat, so the family moved into the factory estate.

The firm closed in the 1980s, but Tong stayed in the building.