“The difficulties of the ethnic minorities in renting an apartment, most property owners and agents are Chinese, who have various understandings of the ethnicity minorities. Most consider them as poor tenants with strong odor who either could not afford the rent or skip it entirely. The owners think that the cooking practice of ethnic minorities is often complained by their neighbors. This explains why owners are unwilling to rent out their flats to people of ethnic minorities. In additions, there is a language barrier issue. Usually, once people of ethnic minorities arrive at a property agency. The estate agents will claim there are no available properties for rent, thinking their EM clients could not comprehend Chinese. They will then show them the door, rather than showing them the available properties in the market. Even if a suitable apartment is identified, property owners would require them to provide income certificates and employment proof. The rental cost is particularly stressful to them. Since the supply of rental properties is lacking, the available property for rent is rather expensive. Especially when most ethnic minorities are grassroot citizens with low disposable income. Their percentage of rent to income is higher, compared with most Chinese family. Their rent could be more than fifty percent of their income.” Ms Joey Cheung, Community Organizer of Society for Community Organization said.

Unfair treatment encountered by ethnic minorities in the private rental market. It makes them feel incredibly helpless and frustrated. Under the “Community Housing Movement” of the HKCSS, SOCO is the operating agency of the “Sai Wan Shun Sing Mansion” project. It assists EM families in taking up an affordable accommodation, which help alleviate their living expense, and improve their relationship with other family members.

Taking Shahzad’s family as an example, living in the community housing not only reduces half of his rental expense. Before they moved the social housing, their life was quite difficult. They were very stressful and quarrel frequently and bear high financial burden. Because he was working in a pizza shop and his salary was not enough to cover the rent and other living expenses. The rent of a subdivided unit costs HK$8000. So, after he became unemployed, they had to move out the subdivided unit.

They move to social housing, which also reduces friction among family members, improving their family relationships. More importantly, community housing facilitates interaction between Chinese and ethnic minority’s families living in the same building, deepening mutual understanding, promoting racial inclusion.

“Before moving into social housing, I did not have many Chinese friends. Through the inclusion program, I knew a lot of Chinese neighbors, as compared to the previous conditions which have no linkage with Chinese communities. This is nice here, because we often do not have chances to communicate in-depth with others outside. In the activities, we were able to co-habit in the same space, which facilitated communication and increased our understanding of their backgrounds and cultures. And we learned how to get along, and how to communicate with them. I want to express my appreciation and gratitude to SOCO social workers who help my family. It really means a lot to us. Especially during the outbreak of the coronavirus, they provided free masks, hand sanitizers and other infection control materials to combat the pandemic. They even taught us how to protect ourselves (with precautionary measures).” Shahzad said.

“Actually, a lot of families from the ethnic minorities are not familiar with the locals and the Chinese neighborhoods. E.g. they do not have much opportunity to exchange views with the locals, and hereby lack information (on community resource). It is not their own problems. Instead, it is due to having few friends from other ethnicities. There are also differences in religions, traditions and customs. In fact, they rarely have chances to get along with neighbors of other ethnicities. Through our inclusive activities and programs, (the residents) are able to exchange with communities and neighbors more. After all, they are living in the same area (building). We wish neighborhood’s mutual help can be developed when their needs arise.” Ms Jennie Chui, Community Organizer of Society for Community Organization, said.

Jennie said that HKCSS “Community Housing Movement” provides them with experiences in managing and operating housing programme. It inspires us to design and develop different types of social housings in future. The operating agencies, who are/will participate in the social housing project, all start out by operating social housing under HKCSS “Community Housing Movement”. Having accumulated substantial experiences, such as learning specific needs of different households, we can develop more various social services. This is a room which HKCSS provides us to get inspiration. Without this type of service, it will be much more difficult to imagine how we could provide different tailor-made services when we manage different social housing, apartments, tenants and ethnic minorities with specific needs.