Hong Kong: Housing subsidy trial to go ahead

The Housing Bureau will launch a trial scheme tomorrow to provide assistance to households in transitional housing projects in the form of a one-off special allowance.

The trial scheme is targeted at households who have moved into transitional housing units under the Funding Scheme to Support Transitional Housing Projects by Non-government Organisations on or after June 16 this year. It is intended to help qualifying households move home and adapt to living in a new community.

Households receiving the allowance will have to stay in their new unit for at least one year, and will not be granted the allowance for a second time thereafter.

Noting that many of the households moving into transitional housing are on low incomes and may not be able to afford relocation expenses, the bureau said it had successfully applied to the Commission on Poverty for $85.2 million in funding from the Community Care Fund to support the two-year trial scheme.

It is estimated that as many as 35,000 people will benefit.

The amount of money disbursed depends on the size of each household and the region they are moving to. There are no stipulations as to how the subsidy must be spent.

Households can submit an application for the subsidy when completing the procedures to take up an allocated transitional housing unit. Operating organisations will disburse allowances within 20 working days of receiving an application.

If an approved applicant has not yet moved into the project in that time, the allowance will be disbursed within 10 working days of them formally moving in.

Application forms and details will be available online starting from tomorrow.

Call 3579 5549 for enquiries.

This story has been published on: 2023-08-21. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article.