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list applicants. Furthermore, apart from the difficulties for part-time, temporary and piece workers to prove their actual earnings, low-income wage-earners are the first to be hit during economic recessions. The proposed housing subsidy policy will do injustice to the bulk of low-income tenants, just because some government officials had sudden qualms about a small number i.e. five per cent of well-off tenants taking advantage of housing subsidy.
We therefore recommend that 60 per cent of the
income of other family members be included in the calculation of housing subsidy, as this will spare the majority of tenants, the trouble of declaring their income once every two years.
A
It must be remembered that the 490,000 households had waited for many years before moving into public housing estates simply to benefit from the relatively low rental. reduction in subsidy will definitely undermine their present standard of living which rests on the premises of existing provision of housing subsidy. The proposed policy becomes an anathema for these people who have to cut other expenses, work over-time or take up other jobs in order to pay a double amount
of rent.
In order to put the whole issue into proper perspective, I fully support the suggestion of our LegCo Housing Panel to conduct a full scale review on the income of all households which have resided for ten years in public housing estate. Such a review can put an end to different speculations on the number of well-off tenants and clear up doubts about discrepancies shown in official statistics.
Hong
The social role of public housing in meeting people's basic need, improving their quality of life and enhancing social stability cannot be emphasized enough. Kong's spectacular achievement in providing low-cost housing to almost half the population during the past 33 years must be