208 Housing
facilities for the visually impaired, installing additional lifts, improving lighting, and providing leisure and other user-friendly facilities.
Allocation
In 2007, 24 878 public rental housing flats were let by the HKHA and the HKHS to different categories of applicants. The number comprised 6 176 new flats and 18 702 refurbished flats. Of these, 60 per cent were let to applicants on the public rental housing waiting list, 6.7 per cent to tenants affected by the HKHA's Comprehensive Redevelopment Programme, 0.4 per cent to families affected by estate clearances, 2.3 per cent to junior civil servants, 22.1 per cent to sitting tenants for transfers (including overcrowding relief), and the remainder to victims of fire and natural disasters, compassionate cases
cases recommended by the Social Welfare
Department and other categories of applicants.
For ordinary applicants, flats are allocated to them according to their registration number and their choice of districts. For non-elderly, single-person applicants, allocation is based on a quota and points system in which priorities are determined by the applicant's age, waiting time and whether the applicant is already a public rental housing tenant. All applicants are required to meet the residence requirement in Hong Kong and to undergo a means test and a domestic property test. To speed up the letting of some less popular flats, the HKHA launched an Express Flat Allocation Scheme under which all these flats were pooled at regular intervals for selection by all eligible applicants on the waiting list. During the year, 3 586 households were rehoused under this scheme.
The HKHA also offers accommodation to people whose illegal squatter or rooftop homes have to be cleared by the Government, provided they meet certain stipulated conditions. A total of 220 people, made homeless by squatter and rooftop clearances, were rehoused by the HKHA in 2007.
Home Ownership
Sale of Subsidised Flats
Since 1978, more than 452 1004 subsidised sale flats have been sold to eligible households at discounted prices under the Government's various subsidised home ownership schemes such as the Home Ownership Scheme (HOS)/the Private Sector Participation Scheme (PSPS) and the Tenants Purchase Scheme (TPS) run by the HKHA. In accordance with the Government's current housing policy, the HKHA has been concentrating its resources on assisting low income families that cannot afford private rental accommodation. It ended the TPS after the sale of Phase 6, terminated the PSPS and halted production and sale of HOS flats in 2003.
To dispose of the remaining HOS flats numbering some 16 600, the HKHA formulated a sales plan in 2006, under which all HOS flats were to be put up for sale
4
Including flats sold by the HKHS. Of the 452 100 flats sold since 1978, 60 600 flats can be traded in the open market as at end-December 2007. These flats are not counted as subsidised sale flats under the current definition.