Community Housing Movement is a social movement launched by the HKCSS with the joint efforts of The Community Chest of Hong Kong, Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development Fund (SIE Fund), landlords, and NGOs/social enterprises (SEs), supported by the Government. The HKCSS plays the role of an intermediary platform in soliciting and renovating idle residential properties from private developers, and then sublet it to the eligible NGOs/SEs as qualified operators in order to lower their operational risk and cost. Besides, through partnership with a range of professional bodies, the HKCSS helps with handling the related building and management matters such as site inspection, renovation, tenancy agreement drafting, or other relevant contraction tasks etc.
Community Housing Movement obtains a funding support from The Community Chest of Hong Kong for housing renovation and social service. With SIE Fund, The Community Chest of Hong Kong supports The Hong Kong Council of Social Service as an intermediary to manage the project. The funding support has ended at end of September of 2020, while more than 500 units of transitional social housing have been provided within these 3 years.
From now on, Community Housing Movement will be run on a self-financed mode. It will continuously support the existing households whom tenancies has not yet expired. Meanwhile, except large-scale project and the T-Home: Letting Scheme for Subsidised Sale Developments with Premium Unpaid under the Hong Kong Housing Society, the Council has stopped other application at the end of September of 2020.
The core idea of the project is not to meet the housing needs in a narrow sense, but to view the housing issue as citizen’s living issue; apart from the building conditions, the project has a strong focus on improving citizen’s community life in their respective residential districts. In other words, the project emphasizes community-based empowerment in the sense that households can receive community support to tackle their living challenges; conversely, through participation, households contribute their talents to the community.
Its objective is, through the provision of transitional accommodation and support services, to provide a short-term relief for individuals or families which are:
- proven to be in need of transitional housing (queued for Public Rental Housing (PRH) for no less than 3 years, or those with other long-term housing arrangement)
- currently living in dismal and inadequate housing conditions
- low income and in urgent need for community support
The housing is transitional in nature. This, on top of accommodation, pre-qualified service operators will provide community-based social services and work with tenants to develop their capacity for living independently in the community after the service.