Singles out of luck when it comes to waiting time, says housing chief
Chief executive's election pledge to cut the time solo applicants have to wait for a public rental flat is unrealistic in light of backlog, says Pescod
Housing advisers' calls for shortening the waiting time of some single people for public housing has been dismissed as "not realistic" by the housing chief.
A suggestion to do just that was included in Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying's election manifesto pledge.
At a Housing Authority meeting yesterday, director of housing Duncan Pescod said the growing waiting list meant it was ever more difficult to let 36,800 single people benefit from the present policy of assigning family applicants flats within three years of them registering for one.
"I have to be blunt," Pescod said. "There is no realistic prospect of relaxing and extending the commitment to applicants under the Quota and Points System at this time."
He was referring to the scheme introduced in 2005 that gives a lower priority to single applicants under the age of 60.
While family applicants and the elderly are guaranteed to receive an offer of a public rental unit within three and two years respectively, this group does not enjoy any pledge.
Pescod made the comment after some authority members at the last meeting urged the government to extend the three-year pledge to single people.
Of the 22,000 units available for allocation each year, only 2,000 are reserved for the group. They often have to wait for five or six years or even longer.
"When the housing supply increases, we must extend the target to those applicants. Unfortunately and inevitably, it will take some time," Pescod added.
The number of applicants for public rental homes has hit a 20-year high.
As of the end of March, there were 116,900 family and elderly applicants and 111,500 non-elderly singles on the waiting list. Of the latter, about 36,800 were over 35 years old.
The idea of helping single people was highlighted in Leung's election manifesto, which said that the long-term housing supply would increase so that non-elderly single applicants over 35 would receive housing within three years of them applying.
Pescod also dismissed a suggestion to give applicants waiting for public housing a rent allowance because "the main beneficiary will be the landlords and it would result only in higher rent and fewer units for renting".
Meanwhile, Secretary for Transport and Housing Anthony Cheung Bing-leung said after the meeting that it would not be a good idea to use vacant government sites to build interim housing to urgently relocate people living in substandard subdivided flats.
But it would be an option to explore the feasibility of converting factory buildings as temporary housing.
But Cheung also said it would not be possible for all factory blocks to be reused in this manner because not all sites would meet requirements such as having transport links and a reliable fresh water supply.
