‘Raise six-month hostel limit to get Hong Kong’s homeless off the street’
Lawmakers told of rising numbers sleeping rough, unable to find affordable housing
The homeless should be allowed to stay in hostels for at least 18 months rather than the current limit of six months to cope with a surge in people sleeping rough, lawmakers heard on Tuesday.
Service providers told a meeting of the Legislative Council’s public complaints office that there were 1,614 homeless people in the city – 200 more than three years ago.
Worrying new trends had also emerged: more people were going back on the streets after a stint away because they could not find affordable and liveable housing, and more homeless people had jobs paying the minimum wage.
The Social Welfare Department provides five short-term hostels and two emergency shelters.
“I only had six months [at the homeless shelter] and the places I’ve seen were so bad and all fire hazards,” Chow Hing-kong, a former street sleeper, said. He had just found a 24 sq ft space to call home – the only type of accommodation he could afford – but was tempted to go back on the streets.
Chow said the six months in the shelter was good for him and he wished he could have stayed longer.
His new place was cramped, unsafe and infested with bed bugs, he said.
“I also know no one there. I made friends at the shelter. But here, no one would even know or care if I died in my sleep.”
Professor Wong Hung of Chinese University, who organised the 18-district “homeless census”, said extending the hostel stay to between 18 months and three years would help the homeless to save money, rebuild connections and community ties, and prevent them from returning to the streets.
However, in the long term, the city needed to come up with a policy to tackle homelessness, Wong said.
The government puts the homeless figure at 904, but its methodology has long been criticised as inaccurate. The last citywide survey was conducted in 1999.
