Carrie Lam visits transitional housing families

Chief Executive Carrie Lam, accompanied by Secretary for Transport & Housing Frank Chan, on Sunday (Oct. 10) visited four families living in transitional housing operated by the Lok Sin Tong Benevolent Society Kowloon to know more about their living conditions.

The four households moved to the transitional housing from subdivided units. They are satisfied with the new living environment, the relevant services and mutual help in the neighborhood as well as the lighter rent burden.

The two transitional housing projects visited by Lam provided immediate relief to about 160 households that had been waiting for public rental housing and lived in deplorable conditions.

One of the projects is in Lok Sin Tong Primary School which was closed in August 2019. With about $15 million funding from the Community Care Fund (CCF), the school was converted and renovated into transitional housing.

There are 51 units for families of two to five, shared spaces for leisure and creative learning as well as family support service provided by Lok Sin Tong.

Another project, located at the junction of Sung Wong Toi Road and To Kwa Wan Road, was the first transitional housing project on government land that was not ready for development temporarily and was built with the modular integrated construction method.

It was granted a funding of over $60 million from the CCF and has started intake of residents in the middle of this year, offering 110 units for families of one to three.

With eco-construction and greening as the theme, the project's greening area takes up 20% of its gross floor area. Existing trees on the site have been conserved, while a garden area as well as shared and leisure spaces are also provided.

Lam said she outlined the long-term supply of land and housing in Hong Kong in her 2021 Policy Address and the Government will step up efforts in producing more public housing units to help people in need.

The current-term Government has also adopted a new mindset and proactively made use of short-term vacant land to increase the supply of transitional housing.

"Every time I visited families in transitional housing, I could feel the heartfelt joy of the residents, in particular those with children as more space was available for kids to engage in learning," the Chief Executive noted.

In her Policy Address, Lam proposed to increase the overall supply of transitional housing units to 20,000 in the coming few years by providing 5,000 additional units and raise the amount of funding from $8.3 billion to $11.6 billion.

She also pointed out that the Government will continue to increase the supply of housing and land through a multi-pronged approach in the long run.

If the various policies proposed in the Policy Address are implemented, the government-led land supply will be able to provide one million of public and private residential flats in the coming 20 to 25 years, thoroughly addressing the needs of people who are queueing for public rental housing and those who would like to become home owners, she added.