Secretary for Housing Winnie Ho visited the headquarters of a local social housing association, L’Union sociale pour l’habitat (USH), and eco-neighbourhoods during her visit to Paris, France, yesterday.
In the morning, Ms Ho met USH’s Director of Economic & Financial Studies Christophe Bellégo to learn about the organisation’s work, including conducting research and analysis on local housing issues, and contributing to their government’s policy formulation.
During the meeting, Ms Ho highlighted the work of the Housing Bureau and the Hong Kong Housing Authority.
She explained that housing is the greatest concern among all key issues of the current-term Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government, and that the bureau strives to formulate suitable housing policies and deliberate on different measures to address housing issues to cater for the housing needs of different social strata.
The policy initiatives include building Light Public Housing and transitional housing expeditiously to improve the living conditions of people living in inadequate housing at the soonest.
She added that the Hong Kong Housing Authority, established over 50 years ago, has long been providing affordable rental housing to low-income families with housing needs. It continuously enhances the housing ladder to help low- to middle-income families gain access to subsidised home ownership, encouraging them to move up the housing ladder and thus enhance people’s sense of contentment and happiness.
Ms Ho presented to the participants of the meeting the “Well-being design” guide launched last year, which serves as a reference for the future design of new public housing estates and the improvement works of existing estates to create a more comfortable and vibrant living environment for its residents.
She pointed out that apart from housing construction, to continuously enhance the management efficiency and service quality of its nearly 200 public housing estates, the Housing Department has been actively promoting smart estate management and bringing in new technologies to help optimise estate management and building maintenance services.
Guided by the USH, Ms Ho visited two eco-neighbourhoods in Paris, Clichy-Batignolles and Ecoquartier Nanterre Université.
The housing chief made it clear that the Hong Kong Housing Authority also attaches importance to promoting low carbon and energy-saving buildings, green spaces and connectivity with the nearby community when planning and developing new public housing projects.
In the afternoon, Ms Ho called on Chinese Ambassador to France Deng Li to share Hong Kong’s latest housing policies and initiatives, which includes promoting the development of housing construction technologies by leveraging the power of the Greater Bay Area.
Additionally, Hong Kong’s strengths as a super connector and a highly international city were also discussed during her conversation with the ambassador.
