Waiting time for Hong Kong public rental housing falls to 5.5 years
Hong Kong Free Press
The average waiting time for Hong Kong’s public rental housing has dropped to 5.5 years for general applicants, according to the latest government figures, as authorities continued to crack down on tenancy abuse.
The Housing Authority on Monday said the average waiting time for a public rental unit in the past 12 months had dropped 0.2 years to 5.5 years as of the end of June. The wait for elderly one-person applicants also fell to 3.7 years in the same period, the authority said.
The second quarter of the year saw about 7,000 public rental units allocated to general applicants, which was the highest figure since the third quarter of 2022, according to the authority. Among them, about 900 flats were allocated to single seniors.
Separately, around 500 flats were allocated to non-elderly singles under the quota and points system, a scheme that prioritises single applicants who are older but have not reached the age of 60.
The authority said that the drop in waiting time was a result of an “advance allocation scheme,” which opted for a phased completion approach in housing estates such as the Cheung Tsing Estate in Tsing Yi and Yip Wong Estate in Tuen Mun. Under the scheme, applicants were given a flat before the entire development project was completed.
A crackdown on “rich tenants” who abused the public housing system was also attributed by the authority for adding to the number of available subsidised flats.
The authority has recovered around 5,000 flats since the 2022-23 fiscal year, including 700 units that were taken back between April to June. Those flats were said to have housed tenants with property in the city, in mainland China or overseas, or assets and income that exceed the limit placed on public housing tenants.
Chief Executive John Lee in 2022 vowed to reduce the average waiting time for public rental housing to four and a half years within four years. The waiting time peaked in March that year at 6.1 years.
The authority said it expected the average waiting time to remain stable or drop slightly in the second half of this year thanks to the completion of new housing estates, which would increase the supply of public rental units.
The completion of 30,000 “light public housing units,” a transitional housing initiative proposed by Lee in 2022 to help tackle the long-waiting time for a public rental unit, would also increase supply from early 2025, the authority said.
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