Government shelters stayed closed during daytime hours despite bone-chilling weather in January
JASMINE.SIU@SCMP.COM
PUBLISHED : Friday, 12 February, 2016, 10:15pm
UPDATED : Friday, 12 February, 2016, 10:26pm
Street sleepers protests outside Nam Cheong Community Centre in Sham Shui Po before the Society for Community Organisation-arranged meeting with officials. Photo: Edward Wong
About a dozen homeless people led by the Society for Community Organisation emerged disappointed from a closed-door meeting with government officials on homeless policy and shelter arrangements on Friday.
This was despite the Home Affairs Department revealing is was carrying out an internal review on the operation of temporary shelters in cold weather.
The centres came under fire last month after they remained closed during daytime hours despite the city shivering amid record low temperatures.
Organiser Ng Wai-tung said they demanded the government cease disturbing and driving away homeless people, such as closing bridges or trashing their personal belongings, because street sleeping is not illegal.
“But the government did not respond at all,” he said after a three-hour meeting.
Among those who attended the meeting were the department’s assistant director Cheng Chung-hing as well as Sham Shui Po’s district officers and district welfare officers.
Ng also revealed that the department has indicated it does not plan to introduce interim shelters of up to three years for homeless people.
Anthony Tang Tak-chuen, 60, a street sleeper who was asked to leave one shelter due to a lack of space last month, said he expected the government to offer a timetable on the ongoing review.
“They can’t promise us anything,” said Tang. “We are very disappointed.
“Most ideally they would have policies to help us be allocated housing, or interim accommodation for us to live in. But this meeting failed to give us a satisfactory reply.”
Another homeless man Ken Leung, 54, said the atmosphere at the meeting was “not bad”.
But he pointed out that the discussions did not produce any concrete results that could actually help them. “We were just talking,” the former waiter said.
The city’s temperatures dropped to their lowest in 59 years on January 24, with the Observatory in Tsim Sha Tsui recording a temperature of 3.1 degrees – a record low since the 2.4 degrees of February 11, 1957.
Leung said he took shelter from the cold at public libraries and a branch of McDonald’s, after he was told to leave the temporary shelters at 7am.
“If I have cash, I buy a newspaper and spend hours at cha chaan teng,” he added.
The Legislative Council’s Subcommittee on Poverty is set to discuss on support for street sleepers on Tuesday, when it will hear submissions from six groups including the Society for Community Organisation.
Last night, the Home Affairs Department said it would review all stakeholders’ opinions on the shelters’ location, security, environmental condition and variety of food choices.
The number of homeless in Hong Kong has almost tripled in the last decade, from about 600 in 2004 to 1,514 last October, according to a recent survey by volunteers from nine universities and non-government organisations.
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education-community/article/1912443/cold-comfort-hong-kong-street-sleepers
