ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the social contexts and social changes that necessitate the continuation of a security-based housing policy, including demographic changes, population policy and post-retirement welfare. It aims to canvas the social implications of the dominance of public rental housing estates as a residential form for lower-income families, supported by the outcomes of a questionnaire survey of 600 samples undertaken in large housing estates in the city. The chapter focuses on the social wellbeing of the residents and its relation to the urban form of Hong Kong. It describes the housing wellbeing of the lower-income families who fall out of the subsidy net or wait to be admitted into subsidized housing, as reflections of the inadequacies of an in-kind-led housing subsidy policy in a market economy, as opposed to a cash-led policy. The expanding private rental sector with deteriorating housing quality has reflected the limits of a security-based welfare policy embedded in a producer-led and rental-tenure-centred housing subsidy policy.
