Waiting time for public housing hits 22-year high
Local | 11 May 2021 1:48 pm
The average waiting time for public housing has grown to 5.8 years, the longest ever as supply shrank amid the pandemic, Housing Authority announced.
The figure is still behind the government’s target of three-year waiting time for public housing.
As of the end of March, there were 153,000 general applications and another 100,500 applications for non-elderly singletons, totaling 253,000 -- about 600 less than the figure for the last quarter ending December.
But the average waiting time for general applications grew to 5.8 years also as of the end of March -- 0.1 year longer than the figure for last quarter.
Meanwhile, the average waiting time for applications for non-elderly singletons rose to 3.6 year during the same period -- 0.2 year longer than the figure for last quarter.
The authority explained that the average waiting time for the applications had been prolonged by its pandemic-affected allocation work last year.
It said its allocation work also affected last year’s intake in public housing estates including Fai Ming Estate in Fanling and Chun Yeung Estate in Fo Tan -- which was used for quarantining close contacts of confirmed Covid-19 patients last year.
“The overall allocation work is now back on track, including the completion of intake formalities for Chun Yeung Estate and Fai Ming Estate,” the authority said.
“As a result, as many as 4,000 general applicants were housed in the first quarter of 2021, and the number of elderly one-person applicants housed also increased from 600 in the last quarter to 700.”
The average waiting time for public housing refers to the time taken between registration for public housing and first unit offer, according to the authority.
It excludes any frozen period during the application period, such as when the applicant is yet to fulfill the residence requirement, he or she has put his or her application on hold pending arrival of family members and the applicant is imprisoned.
From July 2019 to last June, a total of 10,400 general applicants had been housed in public housing, the authority said.
Of the 10,400 applicants, most of them -- or 51.9 percent -- had waited for over 6 years to be housed in public housing, whereas only 10.6 percent had waited for 3 years or less.
The allocation of applications for units in two blocks of Kai Chuen Court in Diamond Hill will start in the third quarter, sources said.
