Hongkong Land launches scheme backed by HK$100 million fund to help 1,000 students and their families stuck in subdivided flats

The Home Fund initiative will offer educational and counselling programmes to 1,000 Primary Four to Form Six students and their families

Hongkong Land will also match monetary contributions that its employees and tenants make to programme

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Hongkong Land’s initiative is aimed at offering help to students stuck in cramped spaces. Photo: K. Y. Cheng

Published: 7:00am, 18 Nov 2021Updated: 11:49am, 18 Nov 2021

Hongkong Land, the biggest landlord in the Central business district, has revealed a new programme backed by a HK$100 million (US$12.84 million) fund aimed at helping 1,000 pupils and their families living in subdivided flats to climb the social ladder.

The Home Fund initiative, which involves the Hong Kong Council of Social Service and 27 non-government organisations, will offer educational and counselling programmes to 1,000 Primary Four to Form Six students and their families stuck in cramped spaces in Yau Tsim Mon and Sham Shui Po districts, two of the poorest in Hong Kong.

“Studying in a confined space in the grip of an epidemic, teenagers who live in subdivided flats really struggle a lot,” Natalie Wu Yuk-yee, the developer’s senior manager of corporate social responsibility, said earlier this week. “Also, how can they maintain a healthy relationship with their families? We see the need to help these young people.”

Natalie Wu, Hongkong Land’s senior manager of corporate social responsibility. Photo: K. Y. Cheng

Secondary school students will also be offered job shadowing, internships and career planning.

The 132-year-old developer, which owns about 450,000 square metres of prime office and retail space in Central, said its decision last year to set up the fund was unrelated to Beijing’s call for property companies to help solve the housing crisis.

The central government leadership has called the lack of affordable housing a deep-seated problem that local officials must address, and set a target in July for the city to “bid farewell” to subdivided flats and so-called cage homes by 2049.