Single public housing applicants ‘face unfair system’

Some non-elderly single people queuing for public housing have accused the authorities of discriminating against them when it comes to allocating flats.

Currently, these single people are in a queue separate from family or elderly applicants, with the latter having to wait nearly six years for public housing on average.

The Society for Community Organisation (Soco) interviewed 150 young singletons, who had lived in cage homes or subdivided flats over the past year, and found one fifth of them had been waiting for a public flat for a decade or more.

Around 60 percent of respondents also said they had a tough time renting a place because they’re single, and it’s too expensive.

Andy Tsang, 50, has been waiting for a public flat for 15 years – one of the longest in the queue among those polled.

“The system is so unfair, I cannot see the end of the tunnel. The authorities kept changing the points system all these years,” he told reporters on Sunday at a Soco press conference.

Tsang said he has problem paying rent because his income has become unstable because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Soco’s deputy director, Sze Lai-shan, said the public housing singleton points system should be less dependant on the age of applicants.

Sze said factors such as the applicant’s living conditions, rental expenses should become bigger factors, if and when the authorities review the system.

She said the authorities should increase the public housing allocation quota for single people, and if they don’t, they should at least consider going back to its ‘first-come-first-served’ system.