Can mix-tenure alleviate social stigma in public rental housing?

Abstract

Social stigma on public housing is a deep-rooted and unsolvable problem, places with large-scale public housing are perceived as concentration of unemployment and crimes in which outsiders are reluctant to visit those ghettos. Some empirical researches endeavored to argue social stigma on public housing can be abated by diversifying the tenure type, while UK government is a typical example in implementing mix tenure policy. However, the situation of Hong Kong seems different, social stigma on public housing is less apparent than western countries while living in public housing is sometimes perceived as fortunate due to low rent cost and good quality. In Hong Kong, government has not adopted any mix tenure policy whereas mix tenure of public housing, mix of renters and owners, is an unintended consequence of Tenant Purchase Scheme (TPS). In order to understand why social stigma seems less apparent in Hong Kong, this research is going to examine, first, the situation of social stigma on public housing in particular to Lam Tin district where a place with high density of public housing and mix tenure, second, if mix-tenure can alleviate social stigma on public housing in Hong Kong in which the research area will be focus on the aspects of unemployment and security because public housing is perceived as concentration of unemployment and crimes. In regard to the above research question, two sets of questionnaires were conducted to both residents living in TPS estates and private estates in order to understand their different perceptions on the unemployment and security of public housing, and thereby the survey result will be compared with the actual statistics from governmental bodies. Generally speaking, the survey analysis indicated that both sides of resident have apparent social stigma on the security of public housing while unemployment is less seen. What is more, it is interesting that the survey findings are different from the actual situation. Although residents believed that the crime rate is higher in public housing than private housing, there is neither positive nor negative relation between the variables of high density of public housing and crime rates. Social stigma on security was apparently seen from the survey in which majority of respondents agreed with high crime rate in public housing, yet Hong Kong government is not intended to solve the problem as what UK government did because of its historical political philosophy and financial constraints. For instance, Hong Kong government is reluctant to restrict the private developers through mix tenure policy since it would affect the historical philosophy of free economy for Hong Kong. Second, governors are accountable to explain how the public money was spent, and hence government is sensitive on spending large amount of public money to improve the security service and system. In view of the political and financial considerations, it is believed that tackling social stigma on public housing would put at lower priority in government's agenda. Last but not least, since the survey data is only collected in Lam Tin due to time and cost limits, the findings are not extensive and could not apply to all districts of Hong Kong especially for those areas without mix-tenure. In this regard, to have a further analysis on social stigma of Hong Kong public housing, author suggested widening the data collection to conduct a more comprehensive survey.