China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) has launched a light public housing program which is delivering thousands of affordable transitional units for people waiting for permanent rental homes at record speed.
The quality of the housing meets international standards, thanks to factories based in mainland cities in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, according to Winnie Ho, Secretary for Housing of the SAR.
"When I came to the site, when the boxes were still being craned in on the 10th floor, I can walk up to the 6th floor, and all the finishes are already done. It's very tidy. I can walk up the site by high heels. The way we do it is using modular integrated construction. When I start to do the foundation work on site, the factory can start manufacturing. Once we go through the foundation stage, the modules can come in. And so, we manage to build three days per floor," Ho said.
"So what they do on site is the pipe work connections, electricity, wiring, and that's all. And then they are ready for the intake," the official said, adding the intake is already happening.
"When I visited the Yuen Long light public housing, a little girl showed me to her new home, and on the way, we pointed to the flowers and her smile was really, really heartwarming," Ho said.
According to Ho, the target of the whole light public housing program is to provide 30,000 units and 20 tall buildings by 2027.
At present, one third of Hong Kong's population live in public housing, but the way for public housing is quite long. In the meantime, about 200,000 people are still living in subdivided flats, the infamous "coffin homes."
The Hong Kong government has pledged to eradicate these coffin homes by 2049, according to Ho.
"The waiting time has dropped by one year to 5.1. Every point one is very difficult to achieve. Once we start the intake of light public housing, immediately we see the effect. And that's giving a choice for those people who are now in very poor conditions. We offer them very low rent as well. So this is the first step to tackle the subdivided unit issue," Ho said.
In addition to affordable housing, Ho also vowed to improve community services for the residents to create a better living environment.
"We learn about how we can provide temporary, affordable housing for people in very difficult situations and integrating the good services of our NGOs. I expect these families to live in the light public housing for two years or three years before they move to the traditional housing. We hope that these families can learn better family relationship skills, how they can plug into the various social services in Hong Kong. And so these two years is not just about physical space. It's about software as well, software support to the family," she said.
Hong Kong builds affordable apartments to address housing shortage
