May 23, 2012

The Community Care Fund steering committee today endorsed two new assistance programmes, to provide subsidies for low-income earners who are inadequately housed, and old buildings’ owners' corporations.
 
Chief Secretary Stephen Lam, who chairs the steering committee, said since several pioneer projects were effective, the committee supported incorporating several of them into the Government's regular assistance and service programmes, to benefit more people in need. 
 
“What we have really achieved is to identify groups which fall between the gaps in this community - those who have needs, but where our safety nets like public housing and Comprehensive Social Security Assistance have not been able to catch all of them completely,” he told reporters after the committee meeting.
 
“Because the Community Care Fund has been able to fill these gaps, after some pilot testing we are now in a position to regularise some of these programmes, and we will do so progressively.”
 
The fund's second-phase Medical Assistance Programme subsidises patients with financial difficulties to use self-financed drugs under the Samaritan Fund. The Hospital Authority plans to incorporate the programme into the Samaritan Fund's regular mechanism in the second half of this year, he said, lowering the patient contribution ratio from a maximum of 30% to a uniform rate of 20%.
 
The Government is also exploring whether to incorporate the training subsidy for children who are on the waiting list of subvented pre-school rehabilitation services, the subsidy for the tenant purchase scheme for flat owners on CSSA, and the subsidy to meet lunch expenses at schools for primary students from low-income families into the Government's regular assistance programme. 
 
One-off housing subsidies
The committee today proposed setting aside about $91 million to provide a one-off allowance to low-income earners who are inadequately housed - living in bed spaces, cubicles, temporary housing, or those who are homeless.
 
One-person households would receive $3,000, two-person households, $6,000, and three-or-more person households, $8,000.
 
The fund expects to start accepting applications for the programme from October. Around 13,000 households, or nearly 30,000 people, are expected to benefit.
 
Applicants' income and rent would be subject to limits. They should not be receiving Comprehensive Social Security Assistance, and not own any property in Hong Kong.
 
Bolstering building management
The committee also approved a programme to subsidise old buildings' owners' corporations, to improve building management. The maximum subsidy amount for each owners' corporation is $20,000 over three years.
 
Items eligible for subsidy include registration fees for establishing owners' corporations, procurement fees for third-party risks insurance, routine inspection expenses for fire-services installations and electrical and mechanical equipment, and expenses for clearing fire escapes once a year.
 
Target beneficiaries should be owners' corporations of residential or composite buildings aged 30 years or above, subject to limits on the average rateable value of the residential units.
 
The fund has reserved $68 million to implement the programme, which is expected to benefit more than 3,000 owners' corporations. Applications are expected to open in October.