'Fix Housing Woes Quickly To End Social Unrest'

The Chair of Economics at the University of Hong Kong, Richard Wong, has called on the government to sell public rental housing units to its existing tenants in order to narrow the wealth gap in society, as part of efforts to help resolve the city's social unrest.

Professor Wong, who’s also the deputy vice chancellor at the University of Hong Kong, said the city’s housing problem is largely to blame for the worsening social sentiments.

Speaking on a forum organised by the pro-Beijing Our Hong Kong Foundation, he said people’s inability to afford a home has substantially widened the wealth gap in Hong Kong.

This growing dissatisfaction over this, he said, had served as a catalyst to the social unrest.

“If you own your own residence, you are on an average, 30 times wealthier than a person who is a public housing tenant. And that is not because of the differences in income and earnings. [But] differences in asset wealth due to ownership versus tenancy,” he said.

He said a quick and effective solution to the problem is for the government to sell its public rental housing units to existing tenants.

When asked if he has oversimplified Hong Kong’s social problems by putting the bulk of the blame on housing, Wong conceded that the government has a wide range of other issues that it needs to tackle.

“No government can address all the problems all at the same time,” said Wong. “Many problems are difficult to address quickly.”

“Certainly we have health care problems, we have education problems, we have political problems, like democracy and freedom. None of them can be addressed quickly. All of them should be addressed. Housing is one problem that can be addressed quickly,” he said.

The HKU deputy chief urged the government to adopt a pro-active approach and deal with the city’s housing problem head-on.