What are Hong Kong’s charities, businesses doing to help the needy? As inflation amid Covid-19 pandemic bites, do-gooders band together in bid to lighten food burden on city’s poor
- Soaring prices of food, fuel and other costs leave grass-roots families straining to make ends meet
- As more people seek help, supermarkets, businesses lend support to food banks, charities
As early as 8am on a Monday, a queue of elderly people have started forming outside Chung Kee Congee restaurant in Hong Kong’s bustling Causeway Bay shopping hub.
Among the first to arrive were Lam and her husband, both 67 and retired restaurant workers who live nearby. They wanted to make sure they were in line for the day’s special and one of their favourites – minced beef congee.
The restaurant gives away free congee to the elderly every fortnight. Although it has told everyone the food will be handed out at 2pm, people still arrive early, prepared to wait hours.
Lam and her husband, regulars in the line, live in their own flat in an old tenement building in Wan Chai. Since retiring about two years ago, they have been relying on their savings to get by. Their only son lives with his family.
They have taken instead to queuing for free hot meals and provisions handed out by restaurants and charities.