Our Hong Kong Foundation (OHKF) has just released our new housing policy initiative, namely “Vision of Universal Affordable Housing in Hong Kong”. Through our research, we found that property prices have increased by more than five times over the past 15 years, while median household income has just increased by a meagre 80% over the same period. This reflects the growing gap between those with properties and those without. In view of this, we hope our new initiative could provide the government and the community with a comprehensive housing policy blueprint that could narrow the wealth gap between the “haves” and the “have-nots”.

We have made reference to the Singaporean housing model to outline a viable path based on the circumstances in Hong Kong. We believe the only way to tackle the current housing crisis is to understand the problems faced by different sectors of the society.

Through a set of ten policy recommendations, such as the refined Tenants Purchase Scheme (TPS 2.0), a Buy-or-Rent Option for new public housing, rent subsidies, fixed premium, and interest-free loans to first-time buyers, etc., the initiative aims at providing assistance for the achievement of homeownership for all sectors of the society: existing Public Rental Housing (PRH) tenants, households on the PRH waiting list or currently living in sub-divided units, owners of Subsidised Sale Flats (SSFs) with premium unpaid, White Form households, and young first-time homebuyers. The ultimate goal is to enable 70% to 80% of Hong Kong citizens to eventually become owners of permanent properties and be able to share the fruits of economic prosperity.