Housing support for One-way Permit migrants is broken, making subdivided flats the structural mainstay

Of the roughly 32,000 family-reunion migrants who come to Hong Kong each year on a One-way Permit, an estimated nearly one-third lack assets and a local support network and must immediately seek the lowest-priced housing on the private residential market, together with existing low-income families driving more than 220,000 people into living in subdivided flats. Many observers of the local housing market report that the capacity of transitional housing and Light Public Housing falls far short of absorbing this added demand, and the sector broadly regards subdivided-flat demand as "structurally inelastic" rather than a short-term transitional state.

The Housing Bureau has relied on the public-housing waiting list, transitional housing and Light Public Housing as its main response, but the quota, supply pace and One-way Permit inflow have long been mismatched; housing-support channels in a migrant's first three years in Hong Kong are limited, and the accompanying support services are scattered among the Community Care Fund, the Council of Social Service and a handful of non-profit organisations. This policy lag has made subdivided flats the de facto mainstay of the grassroots housing market, with the housing safety net depending on private landlords' self-regulation, and local new arrivals and long-standing low-income families together bearing the worst housing standards.