The Housing Problem 5B Lee Kwan Yin Marco
Dear Editor,
I am writing to describe the seriousness of the problem of exorbitant property prices and the lack of public housing, and suggest how it should be addressed.
Housing, a living place, is undoubtedly a necessity of people. Currently, due to the unreasonably high prices of properties and lack of public housing, Hong Kong citizens could hardly afford a living place for themselves. In order to strive for a living place, many people work for long hours. Some may even work during weekends and public holidays. With such long working hours, people do not have enough rest and it might lower their quality of life. Moreover, if people always work under immense stress, it may cause mental problems such as depression.
Apart from that, the problem also leads to a lack of labor in the future. Due to the exorbitant prices of housing, many couples are reluctant to give new birth. The major concern is not the tuition fees, but the space to be provided for a new child. As babies like moving and exploring more, a large space is required. The most frequent place that a new child stays is its home. It can be concluded that if people want to have kids, they need to pay for much more to acquire a flat with sufficient space for their kids. However, it is already a really tough job for people to afford a place for themselves. Compared with the past, people in Hong Kong nowadays mostly prefer not to give birth to a child. If this phenomenon continues, there will be a lack of labor in the future due to the low birth rate.
In Hong Kong, we can see subdivided flats everywhere. Most of these flats are narrow, unhygienic and not safe. A subdivided flats in Mongkok with space that is only enough for placing a bed and table costs more than 4,000 dollars in rent. Moreover, there is a considerable increase in the number of homeless people. They are people who cannot even afford a living place for themselves. They may find some shelters for them to sleep such as McDonald’s or parks. These can be attributed to the exorbitant property prices.
In order to address this problem, the government should build more public housing. As the supply of public housing is not enough, it leads to a rise in prices of properties. With more public housing, people can have more ways to acquire a flat at a relatively lower price, as it lower the demand in the private housing market.
Besides, a policy that pushes people to give birth by giving allowance to couples should be imposed. As the exorbitant property prices make couple afraid of giving birth, this policy can give them more confidence by helping couples to afford part of the cost of buying a bigger flat due to the new birth.
Moreover, building more temporary shelters is suggested. It is undeniable that building more public housing requires a lot of time. To solve the short term problem of the large number of homeless people, the government could build temporary shelters for homeless people.
I hope that the above solutions could relieve the housing problem in Hong Kong.
Yours faithfully,
Chris wong