Hong Kong's Chief Executive John Lee said the government is studying the possibility of relaxing the eligibility criteria for light public housing flats so that more people who are living in inadequate housing can benefit from the scheme.
For those who have been on the public housing waiting list for three years or more, the government previously stated that it has chosen eight locations in Hong Kong to construct some 30,000 modular housing units over the next five years.
In an interview with Ta Kung Pao that was published today, the CE said that the authorities are considering whether to also make these temporary flats available to those who live in "inadequate housing."
"The priority is to provide a large number of homes. Once there are enough homes, people living in inadequate housing, such as sub-divided units, can move out," he said, without specifying the criteria for poor housing.
"We all agree that at the end of the day, some of these inadequate housing should not exist in HK."
Meanwhile, the CE also said that both the local economy and society are moving in the right direction since emerging from the COVID pandemic, adding that the overall governance level of his administration has been raised with a lot of work done.
He stressed, however, that the city must not forget about what happened in the 2019 social unrest, which is an alarm to HK society, while continuing to guard against possible threats to national security.
Comment