{"id":827500,"date":"2025-02-16T12:16:33","date_gmt":"2025-02-16T18:16:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/16\/law-change-on-public-housing-misuse-on-its-way\/"},"modified":"2025-02-16T12:16:33","modified_gmt":"2025-02-16T18:16:33","slug":"law-change-on-public-housing-misuse-on-its-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/16\/law-change-on-public-housing-misuse-on-its-way\/","title":{"rendered":"Law change on public housing misuse on its way"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>\n\t\t\tSecretary for Housing Winnie Ho on Saturday said the government is confident of passing a law change this legislative session making serious misuse of public housing a crime. <\/p>\n<p>\nUnder the proposed amendments to the Housing Ordinance, people who break the rules &#8211; such as subletting units or using them for business without living there &#8211; can face fines of up to HK$500,000 and jail terms of up to a year. <\/p>\n<p>\nCurrently, the toughest punishment for rule-breakers is eviction.  <\/p>\n<p>\nSpeaking on a Commercial Radio programme, Ho gave some examples of what might qualify as serious misuse.<\/p>\n<p>\n\u201cFor example, one unit had lots of mirrors installed and was used as a dance studio. And we found a unit which had fitness equipment in which the tenant was training gym-goers. In these situations, people aren&#8217;t living there, and they&#8217;re using public housing to make money, so we class this as serious misuse of public housing,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n<p>\nHo said the administration would look at each instance on a case-by-case basis, and would be reasonable and compassionate in enforcing the law. <\/p>\n<p>\nFor example, residents who hold small-scale tutorial classes for money, or make handcrafts for online businesses might not be seen as seriously misusing their units, the housing minister said. <\/p>\n<p>\nShe added that the administration had held talks with major parties and received their support.   <\/p>\n<p>\nThe Legco&#8217;s panel on housing is scheduled to discuss the legislation change next month. <\/p>\n<p>\nMeanwhile, the cash reward scheme for people who want to report illegal public housing use kicked off on Wednesday. <\/p>\n<p>\nHo said about 200 reports had been submitted in the last two days, although one-fourth of informants didn\u2019t want the reward, and there were some false claims. <\/p>\n<p>\nShe estimated there would be about 1,300 successful reports this year, with authorities giving out more than HK$4 million in cash.\t\t<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.rthk.hk\/rthk\/en\/component\/k2\/1788106-20250118.htm\" class=\"button purchase\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Secretary for Housing Winnie Ho on Saturday said the government is confident of passing a law change this legislative session making serious misuse of public housing a crime. Under the proposed amendments to the Housing Ordinance, people who break the rules &#8211; such as subletting units or using them for business without living there &#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":827501,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2509,120],"tags":[9032,5973],"class_list":{"0":"post-827500","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-change","8":"category-public","9":"tag-change","10":"tag-public"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=827500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827500\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/827501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=827500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=827500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=827500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}