Fact of the Day: Over Five-Year Wait for Public Housing

Lam suggested the Housing Authority build flats faster

Why do low-income residents have to wait an average of 5.8 years for public housing in Hong Kong?

How could this problem not be tackled effectively by each successive Chief Executive and now the wait time is the longest it has been in more than 20 years?

In addition, Beijing is getting impatient and demanding this problem, and including that of notorious caged homes be solved in the next few years.

Lam wants to develop this land into new CBD

Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor has suggested developing New Territories North to build not only housing but also create the new CBD near the border with Shenzhen. If this area is to be the new "Central district", will low-income earners be able to afford a flat where the new Landmark will be?

On Sunday she tried to shift the blame on the Housing Authority, which is a government agency, saying the government hands out cash subsidies to those who have been waiting for low-income housing for more than three years. 

"The cash subsidies are currently paid by the government, but why shouldn't they be [paid by] the Housing Authority? If you build the estates slowly, you will have to pay [more].

"I hope that they will be motivated to build them faster, at least one or two months quicker.

"Establishing a more substantial sense of accountability is an important part of improving governance."

She also suggested they could use prefabricated materials to build the flats faster.

No sooner had Lam said this did she rile up the Housing Authority, which in turn blamed the government for the shortage of suitable land.

Beijing wants cage home problem solved asap

Raymond Chan Yuk-ming, a member of the authority's building committee, told a radio program earlier in the day that land handed over to the statutory body was little more than "pig skulls" -- a Cantonese expression for unwanted cast-offs -- adding the body was forced to "accept them with tears".

He also went on that officials were forced to "spend a lot of time" responding to neighbourhood concerns about public flats being built on cramped or ecologically sensitive sites.

The claws are out.

To do some damage control, Lam blamed the media (how convenient) for creating quarrels, and that disputes were not constructive. 

Then she went on to praise the authority for building 96,500 new flats in the past four years -- a 50 percent increase from the previous five-year period.

Would a Chief Executive backpedal if she were not going to run again?

In the meantime we're back where we started. 

Again why is it that low-income residents must wait an average of 5.8 years for public housing in Hong Kong?