Average wait for public flat stays at 5.3 years
There's been no change in the average waiting time for a public flat, data released on Wednesday showed, with general applicants still queuing up for 5.3 years on average. Almost 2.5 months were shaved off the waiting period in the first three months of this year. But Housing Authority data for the second quarter of 2023 shows no further improvement. Cleresa Wong, who chairs the authority's subsidised housing committee, told RTHK that flat availability and waiting times are not always directly proportional. She said if the number of public housing flats available are located mostly in the urban area, the average waiting time will be longer. "If they have been applying for urban area [public rental housing] flats, when they eventually have received an allocation, they would have been waiting for quite some time," she said. Individual elderly residents still have to wait for 3.9 years on average to get a flat. The authority said about 2,300 people were allocated flats in the April-to-June period, leaving more than 133,000 still in the queue.______________________________
Last updated: 2023-08-02 HKT 21:32 