XN000022-1996-11-06 — Page 47

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We have taken the following initiatives to encourage elderly people living in sub-standard private accommodation, who are not registered on the Waiting List, to apply for public housing-

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

publicity campaigns were launched to solicit registration, and roving exhibitions in community centres and shopping centres were mounted to encourage applications under various priority schemes for the elderly;

elderly people were invited to join guided tours to visit Housing for Senior Citizens flats;

Housing Information Centres were set up in target districts to enable elderly people to gain easy access to information on public housing; and

home visits were made to elderly people living in private tenements and bedspace apartments to encourage them to apply for public rental housing.

These initiatives will be repeated regularly.

In the 1994 Policy Commitments, we pledged to give priority to elderly people who apply for public rental housing, and to allocate accommodation within two years to elderly couples and singletons who apply in groups of two or three. In the past three years, all eligible elderly applicants, who opted for this scheme at the time of registration, were offered rehousing within the time mentioned.

There are 10,100 elderly persons on the Single Person Waiting List, and less than 2,400 of them have waited for more than two years. The average waiting time for an elderly singleton applying for a single-person public housing unit is about four

years.

End