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Following is a question by the Hon Lee Cheuk-yan and a written reply by the Secretary for Transport and Housing, Professor Anthony Cheung Bing-leung, in the Legislative Council today (January 30):
Question:
Regarding applications for allocation of public rental housing (PRH) units, will the Government:
(a) set out in tables (of the same format as table 1) a breakdown on the number of applications on the Waiting List (WL) for PRH (including those which are temporarily put on hold) as at the end of 2012 by (i) the year of registration on the WL, (ii) the number of family members and (iii) the choice of PRH district (urban, extended urban, the New Territories, islands and all districts); and
(b) set out in tables (of the same format as table 2) a breakdown on the number of applications on the WL for PRH the applicants of which were rehoused in PRH units since 1 April 2012 by (i) the year of registration on the WL, (ii) the number of family members and (iii) the district of the PRH unit allocated?
Reply :
President,
One of the Hong Kong Housing Authority (HA)'s objectives is to provide public rental housing (PRH) to low-income families who cannot afford private rental accommodation. Towards this end, the HA maintains a Waiting List (WL) of PRH applicants. The HA's target is to maintain the Average Waiting Time (AWT) at around three years for general applicants (excluding non-elderly one-person applicants under the Quota and Points System (QPS)).
Under the established methodology, waiting time refers to the time taken between registration on the WL and the first offer of a flat, excluding any frozen period during the application period (for example, when the applicant has not yet fulfilled the residence requirement; the applicant is imprisoned; the applicant has requested to put his/her application on hold pending arrival of family members for family reunion, etc). The AWT for general applicants refers to the average of the waiting time of general applicants housed to PRH in the past 12 months (Remark 1). As at end-September 2012, the AWT for general applicants and elderly one-person applicants were 2.7 years and 1.4 years respectively.
The consolidated reply to the two-part question is as follows:
Detailed analysis on the distribution of waiting time requires a lot of manpower and time for compilation. As such, we are unable to provide the information strictly in accordance with the requirement of the question. However, in view of the increasing number of PRH applicants and the public concern over the waiting time of WL applicants, the HA has previously conducted a special thematic analysis of the housing situation of WL applicants based on the data as at end-June 2012. The relevant work included manually going through individual file records in detail and verifying the information in the file records in order to examine the distribution of waiting time and ascertain the reasons for the long waiting time of individual cases. That task took up a lot of manpower. The gist of the analysis is shown below for Members' reference.
As at end-June 2012, there were about 106 100 general applicants and about 93 500 non-elderly one-person applicants under the QPS on the WL for PRH. Since the AWT target does not apply to the non-elderly one-person applicants under the QPS, they are not included in the HA's analysis above. To examine in detail the distribution of waiting time of the applicants to whom the AWT target applies (i.e. the general applicants (Remark 2) ), the HA has conducted an analysis on the following two different groups of applicants:
(a) about 15 000 general applicants housed between July 2011 and June 2012 (the general applicants housed); and
(b) about 106 100 general applicants still on the WL as at end-June 2012 (the general applicants on the WL).
General applicants housed
Between July 2011 and June 2012, about 15 000 general applicants accepted offers and were housed. The distribution of their waiting time by district choice is shown in table 3.
Among about 15 000 general applicants housed, 35% received their first offer within two years and over half (55%) got the first offer within three years. This is consistent with the AWT of 2.7 years for housed general applicants as at end-June 2012. Regarding the general applicants housed with waiting time of five years or above, roughly half (48%) of the cases involve special circumstances of various kinds (some cases involve two or more special circumstances), including cancellation periods (35%; the major reasons were failure to meet income eligibility requirements in the detailed vetting stage, failure to attend an interview, and inadequate documentary proof); QPS cases housed through the Express Flat Allocation Scheme (21%); change of district choice (11%); change of household particulars (10%); and location preference on social/medical grounds (2%).
General applicants on the WL
As at end-June 2012, among about 106 100 general applicants on the WL (including those applications that were frozen at the time, and applications which had previously been frozen), there were about 15% (about 15 700 applicants) with waiting time of three years or above and without any flat offer. As these applicants have yet to receive any flat offer, the waiting time is counted from the date of registration to end-June 2012, excluding frozen period. The distribution of waiting time of these 15 700 applicants is shown in table 4.
Among about 15 700 general applicants on the WL who had waited for three years or above and without any flat offer, about half of them (about 7 800 cases) have already reached the investigation stage. For applicants reaching the investigation stage, detailed vetting would be arranged soon with allocation of units to follow for those found eligible. As regards the remaining about 7 900 cases which have not reached the investigation stage, they were mainly opting for flats in the Urban and Extended Urban Districts. The HA has carried out a special exercise to study those cases on the WL with waiting time of five years or above and without any flat offer. Results show that 40% of these cases involve special circumstances of various kinds, including refusal to accept housing offer(s) before with reasons (27%), change of household particulars (8%), as well as other circumstances such as cancellation periods, location preference on social/medical grounds and applications for Green Form Certificate for purchasing Home Ownership Scheme units (5%).
Remarks:
1. It should be noted that some applicants on the WL might have their cases cancelled due to different reasons (for example, failure to meet income eligibility requirements in the detailed vetting stage, failure to attend interviews, etc). To give flexibility to these applicants whose circumstances might change thereafter, our existing policy is that they may apply for reinstatement of their application if they could fulfill eligibility criteria again within a specific timeframe. Strictly speaking, the applicant is ineligible during the period from cancellation to reinstatement of application, and hence the period concerned should be excluded when waiting time is calculated. However, due to limitations in our computer system, the HA has not been able to exclude such periods in the calculation of AWT.
2. Including families with two persons or above, and the following one-person applicants –
* Non-elderly one-person applicants originally under the QPS but housed through Express Flat Allocation Scheme;
* Female non-elderly one-person applicants who have been pregnant for 16 weeks or more (the unborn child will be counted as one person); and
* Elderly one-person applicants aged 60 or above.
Ends/Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Issued at HKT 13:52
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