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Emily Hung

Oscar Liu

Rewarding whistle-blowers who report public-flat abuse will not undermine social harmony, Hong Kong’s housing minister has said as she defended the new measure aimed at better allocating resources.
Secretary for Housing Winnie Ho Wing-yin also urged residents to prioritise personal safety when gathering information under the HK$3,000 (US$386) reward scheme, set to take effect on January 15.
“We will only reward the person who provides ‘critical information’ that is helpful to our investigation. We may receive multiple tip-offs for one case, but we will reward the most helpful one,” Ho told a radio programme on Thursday.
“If there is more than one informant and their information is equally critical, they will split the HK$3,000.”
About 800,000 households live in public rental flats, an affordable and much sought-after housing option for low-income groups in a city with land shortages and subdivided homes.
With limited resources, the government has been building transitional housing as a temporary solution while residents wait for public flats.
There are 122,000 families in the queue for a flat, with the average waiting time standing at 5½ years in the third quarter last year.
But the rewards scheme, announced in October, has sparked concerns about whether it will hurt relations among neighbours.
Ho stressed that telling on neighbours who allegedly misused their home was a way to protect community relations, not harm them.
“If you’ve got a neighbour who is using the flat inappropriately, such as subletting it to strangers or turning it into a mahjong parlour, he is the one destroying neighbourly relations.”
Asked whether residents should stalk, eavesdrop or secretly record conversations with suspects to gather “critical information”, Ho said people should always ensure their safety and abide by the laws.
She added that it was unlikely for the reward scheme to be abused because all informants would need to provide their real names and be interviewed by authorities to assess the accuracy of the information provided to be entitled to the bonus.

Ho said authorities expected the number of tip-offs to double to 2,600 after the reward scheme was introduced, of which half, or 1,300, would be useful.
“We always look into every tip-off we receive, regardless of the source or whether the report was made anonymously, but we hope the information will be more accurate with the reward scheme and subsequently save us time in verifying hearsay,” she said.
“The scheme also serves as a warning against abuse of public housing resources, there are many people waiting for the flats and it is very wrong if you use the flat to make money.”
In a budget press briefing on Thursday, Assistant Director of Housing Grace Chan Chui-mei said the Housing Authority did not intend to set a limit on the bonus.
“By helping the Housing Authority reclaim a unit, we save construction expenses, and residents on the waiting list do not have to wait for the authority’s five-year construction period to build a new unit,” she said.
“In reality, HK$3,000 is nothing for the Housing Authority.”
Billy Mak Sui-choi, chairman of the authority’s finance committee, said construction costs had risen significantly from HK$920,000 per rental flat last year to HK$970,000. The cost of a Home Ownership Scheme flat rose from HK$1.09 million to HK$1.15 million.
Lawmaker Scott Leung Man-kwong, a member of the authority’s subsidised housing committee, said abuse cases only accounted for an extremely small proportion of the 800,000 households and was not worried about the impact on neighbourly relations.
“For most tenants, their daily life could go on as usual and would not be affected by the reward scheme, as long as they did not participate in illegal activities.”
Sze Lai-shan, deputy director of NGO the Society for Community Organisation, did not expect tip-offs to spike because informants were required to provide their real names.
“But it’s possible that people will be more vigilant and they might be more suspicious towards each other. We need to be aware of this,” she said.
Sze said from her experience, cases of abuse in public housing were not common and she hoped the investigators would look into each one carefully to not wrong innocent people.
For example, some might not always stay in the flat due to family or mental health problems, and they struggled to express themselves when being questioned, she said.
Authorities recently stepped up efforts to combat the misuse of public housing resources after Kwong Kau, the former father-in-law of slain model Abby Choi Tin-fung, was found in 2023 to have owned a luxury home and a subsidised flat.
Among the multiple measures to tackle abuse and shorten the queue was a new requirement for tenants to make declarations about their assets and income every two years. About 7,000 flats have been reclaimed over the past 2½ years.
Meanwhile, the authority’s finance committee approved the budget and forecasts for the 2025-26 financial year on Thursday.
Mak said after a 10 per cent rent increase last year, the operational account for rental housing was revised from an expected deficit of HK$11.6 billion to a surplus of HK$401 million.
The revised consolidated operating account for 2024-25 showed a total surplus of HK$9.2 billion, and for 2025-26 a surplus of HK$15.418 billion was also anticipated, he said, but it did not reflect the increasing construction expenses year by year.
The authority’s cash flow would be reduced from a revised expected amount of HK$65.8 billion by the end of March to about HK$40.2 billion by the end of March 2029.


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Public housing in Wong Tai Sin. Photo: Jelly Tse

Secretary for Housing Winnie Ho. Photo: Edmond So

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Un Chau Estate in Cheung Sha Wan. The Housing Authority will launch the reward scheme next Wednesday. Photo: Jelly Tse

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A public housing flat near Lion Rock mountain in Wong Tai Sin. The Housing Authority reclaimed 2,200 public rental homes between last April and December due to abuse or lease contravention. Photo: Jelly Tse

The 60-year-old Choi Hung public housing estate. Authorities stepped up efforts against the abuse of public housing resources last year. Photo: May Tse

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Hong Kong has been clamping down on errant public housing tenants in recent years. Photo: May Tse

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Law and Crime

Winnie Ho also says informants will need to be interviewed by authorities to assess the accuracy of the information


Winnie Ho also says informants will need to be interviewed by authorities to assess the accuracy of the information.


Hong Kong property

Hong Kong society

Urban planning

Property policies

Whistle-blowing scheme not a threat to harmony: Hong Kong housing chief

Winnie Ho also says informants will need to be interviewed by authorities to assess the accuracy of the information

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