'People fear homelessness over subdivided flat purge'
A community group on Sunday said some grassroots families fear they'll be left without a roof over their heads by a government push to eliminate "low-quality" subdivided flats. At a press conference, the Society for Community Organisation (SoCO) said people were pleased to hear in last week's Policy Address that a task force will be set up to tackle issues related to subdivided homes. But the group's deputy director, Sze Lai-shan, called on the administration to urgently explain how it plans to rehouse those whose homes are ruled to be substandard. “On one side, [subdivided flat households] are happy to hear that there will be a policy concerning this issue. But on the other side, they also worry whether the government can provide a rehousing policy,  because if their flat is closed and there is no rehousing, they don't know where they can go," she said. "They are afraid they will become homeless and are also worried they will need to move to other more expensive flats." Sze also urged the government to establish a "minimum housing standard" for subdivided homes to define what is considered "low-quality", including flat size, rental price, the number of households per flat and ventilation. “Living space for one person should be not less than seven square metres… There should be individual toilets and also kitchens... We suggest nine items, if the [subdivided flats] violate three of those, they should be closed.” Sze said based on SoCo's observations, an estimated 30 percent of the 110,000 subdivided flats in the city fail to meet such standards.