HK$91m plan all set to help people out of cage homes
Rescue mission for invisible underclass offers payments of HK$8,000 to hard-up families
About 30,000 low-income people living in cubicles and other inadequate housing are expected to benefit from a subsidy launched by the Community Care Fund yesterday which could hand out payments of up to HK$8,000 to help families.
The charitable trust has set aside HK$91 million for the scheme, which was announced earlier this year and was opened to applications yesterday.
The fund's executive committee chairman Law Chi-kwong hopes to target a specific group of low-income people who do not get Comprehensive Social Security Assistance and do not live in public housing. Law said the government did not know how many people fell into this category.
''After we identify how many of them there are in the city, we can then come up with other policies to help them,'' Law said.
People who want to apply for the payments need to meet several criteria.
There is a limit on the average monthly household income of the applicants - HK$8,740, HK$13,410 and HK$17,060 for one-person households, two-person households and three-person households respectively. Again depending on the number of people in the household, monthly rents cannot exceed HK$4,370, HK$6,705, and HK$8,530.