Prologue Journal

‘I’ve been there too’: Former street sleepers return to serve the community

• prologu5
• 02/08/202502/08/2025

Hong Kong Free Press

After working more than 40 years as a professional chef, Chan Fai-ming now finds joy in cooking for free. His “clientele” is a group of homeless people in Hong Kong. 

He understands how it feels to live without a home, Chan said, because he was a street sleeper himself.

“I never thought I would end up in the streets,” he said in Cantonese, adding that he felt at the time he was “such a failure.”

Chan had been working hard, earning enough income until he was laid off in 2021 because the Cantonese restaurant where he worked as a chef was hard hit by the Covid-19 pandemic. Some months later, Chan’s savings ran out and he found himself sleeping on a cardboard in the streets of Tsim Sha Tsui.  

He also had to endure harsh words from strangers. “I heard passers-by saying that street sleepers deserved it and blamed us for blocking the streets,” he said. “I can only accept all of these in silence – the poor can’t fight with the rich.”

Luckily for Chan, those days are over. No longer homeless, the 69-year-old former chef serves the community of street sleepers with his unique skills.

Chan spends time in a community centre run by the Society for Community Organisation (SoCO), an NGO serving low-income residents, to make traditional Cantonese soups for around 80 street sleepers living in Sham Shui Po – a popular area for those who cannot afford a home in Hong Kong, a city notorious for its high property prices.

On Tuesday, the seventh day of the Lunar New Year, known as Renri, which celebrates the creation of humankind, Chan and Mak Nam, another former street sleeper, cooked 400 sweet dumplings and soup for the street sleepers in the neighbourhood. 

Stirring the soup made of ginger slices and brown sugar in a huge pot, Mak said every street sleeper had their own stories to tell before they ended up in the streets. 

“I’ve been there too, and I can understand the difficulties,” the 67-year-old said in Cantonese. “No one wants to be in the streets if they have other options.” 

Going back on track

Mak, who began earning a living when he was 19, first worked as a driver and later a porter. Before the Covid-19 pandemic, he became an overseer in the wholesale fruit market in Yau Me Tei, in charge of a group of porters to offload tons of boxes of fruit from trucks and deliver them to fruit shops. 

“To save money, I moved to Shenzhen, where rent and living expenses are lower, and came to Hong Kong to work every day,” Mak said, “but when the pandemic broke out, everything was halted and I didn’t have any jobs.”

He moved back to Hong Kong in March 2020 just before the government announced to shut down the borders between the city and Shenzhen. He later became a “McRefugee” – a term referring to homeless people and rough sleepers who use fast food chain McDonald’s as a shelter. 

“I lived in McDonald’s, with lots of thoughts going in my mind: What can I do without any jobs? What would happen to those ‘brothers’ working with me?” Mak said, adding that he did not want to bother any families as he had got used to relying on himself. 

A few days later, he was approached by Ng Wai-tung, a social worker with SoCO who has been working with homeless people since 1999. After reviewing Mak’s financial situation, Ng advised him to join the Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA) Scheme and apply for a public housing unit. 

Mak slowly got back on the track. He lived in a social housing unit run by SoCO before moving to a government-subsidised transitional housing unit in Yuen Long last year. But once every few days, he returned to Sham Shui Po to serve the community. 

Giving back to the community

Ng, the social worker, said providing a chance for homeless people to give back to the community is a journey to give them a sense of responsibility. 

“They used to be service recipients, and it is hoped that they will have a sense of responsibility while volunteering,” Ng said in Cantonese, “It’s also a way to facilitate them to have more plans for daily life. When you’re homeless, you just don’t have any plans except what to eat for the next meal.”

Since early last year, Ng initiated the Wooden Trolley Project. Twice every two months, former street sleepers cook around 100 bowls of soups and deliver them to the homeless in Sham Shui Po on a wooden trolley, a piece of equipment made by ex-street sleepers.

“We’ve got a pool of former homeless people. Every time I ask who can volunteer, everyone rushes to raise their hands,” Ng said, “And to prepare soups for so many people is not a piece of cake. You need to prepare recipes beforehand, compare prices of ingredients, buy all the things, cook, deliver and clean up afterwards.”

Everyone has a lesson to learn while volunteering, Ng added. “Some former street sleepers discriminated against some other street sleepers, saying ‘I don’t like them, they are drug addicts.’ And we would help them to respect each other and remind them that everyone has a weakness to overcome, like gambling, poor financial management, etc. “

‘Chef Ming’

According to the Social Welfare Department, as of last October, there were 606 homeless people registered by authorities.

The real number of homeless people is likely to be higher, Ng said, because many street sleepers do not want to be registered. By SoCO’s own estimates, there are around 1,500 homeless people in Hong Kong.

Many of the homeless population live in Tung Chau Street Park in Sham Shui Po, especially after authorities implemented blockades and barricades in popular sleeping sites in Hong Kong,

On Tuesday night, Mak and Chan, along with Ng and four other volunteers who are also former street sleepers, brought the sweet dumpling soup to the park and distributed it to each homeless person there. 

The warm soup emitted a sweet aroma in the cold and windy night. While enjoying the dessert, the street sleepers asked Ng and the volunteers how to find new jobs, and how to get warm clothing and tents to help them survive the winter.

“Around half of homeless people in Hong Kong rely on CSSA for daily expenditures, and they do not rely on us to fill their stomachs,” Ng told HKFP.

“Therefore, we prefer to share with them soup – a symbol of family warmth which they have long missed,” the social worker said, adding that distributing the soup allows them to know the homeless people better. homeless people and follow them up with long-term services.

Chan, who will turn 70 this year, realises he is now too old be hired as a chef again, especially when the city’s economy is slowing down. However, he is happy to use his cooking skills to help the homeless community in Sham Shui Po. 

“I started working in the kitchen when I was 20 years old. I worked in many Shanghainese restaurants and Chiu Chow-style restaurants. The street sleepers said the soups I cooked for them are very special, and they love it,” Chan said with a big smile. 

He feels happier cooking for the street sleepers than working in restaurants because “I share food with people in need,” he said.

“Now everyone in the community calls me ‘Chef Ming.’”

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