TNAG-1575-FCO40-2148-Housing-in-Hong-Kong-1986 — Page 37

Sir

OMELCO

DRAFT SPEECH BY HON HUI YIN FAT

LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL

29.10.86

Adjournment Debate on the "Report of the Committee on Housing Subsidy to Tenants of Public Housing" and the "Report of the Domestic Rent Policy Review Committee"

The compilation and presentation of government documents requires special skills in concealing significant facts and figures which only the astute reader can discover in between lines. The two reports on public housing subsidy and domestic rent policy review offer two excellent examples.

The Committee on domestic rent policy had us believe that domestic rent for new public housing units, which would not exceed 15 per cent of the median income of the tenants, was set at "reasonable" level "affordable" by the majority.

What

Rent imposes

hawkers,

it did not emphasize was half of the 30,000 new households whose income falls below the median income level automatically

If the gets a 15 per cent or much bigger rent-income ratio. figures released by the Committee is at all reliable, some 22.3

about 7,000 households, will1 per cent of the new tenants spend 15 to 25 per cent of their income on rent. a heavy burden on these low-income families coolies, construction workers and squatter dwellers whose

While the Housing monthly income could barely make ends meet. Department stressed that in 1983-85, only 1 per cent of applicants refused the offer of public housing units because of high rent; in actual fact, 60 per cent of the new tenants were people who lost their homes through fire, disaster or clearance and who had no choice but to move into public housing estates.

Sir, I strongly recommend the Committee to review and reshuffle its statistics by pitching the rent-income ratio at the maximum point of 15 per cent of the median income, allowing tenants whose rent-income ratio exceeding 15 per cent to apply for reductions in rent.

OMELCO