Hong Kong flags 1,600 at-risk elderly households, but experts say figure tip of iceberg
Social welfare lawmaker says the number identified fails to reflect risk status of over 500,000 elderly people living alone or in pairs
Hong Kong authorities have identified 1,600 at-risk elderly households in public housing, but analysts have said the figure fails to reflect the scale of this group of vulnerable residents and urged the government to speed up search efforts.
Secretary for Labour and Welfare Chris Sun Yuk-han said on Saturday that authorities had identified high-risk cases by reviewing Housing Department data from more than 800,000 households in public housing.
“These 1,600 households could become the hidden, high-risk elderly households we are concerned about. Finding them allows us to offer help and provide early intervention to reduce the risk,” he told a radio programme.
Sun said authorities would proceed to identify high-risk older residents living in estates under the Housing Society, the city’s second-largest public housing provider, and “three-nil buildings” – those with no owners’ corporation, no form of residents’ organisation and no property management company.
“The Housing Society has a unified resident register and we will extend the same arrangements to its public housing estates to help more elderly people and those in need,” he said.
“In addition, we will cover three-nil buildings as we know that their environment is generally poor and they have many elderly residents.”