Hong Kong’s pool of homeless people is on the rise, squeezed out by soaring rents and a battered economy in the world’s least affordable city to live in. Social workers have warned of the threat to public health and stability unless the problem is tackled. Kathy Zhang reports.
Volunteers distribute free lunch boxes to homeless people in Tung Chau Street Park, Sham Shui Po, on April 7, 2020. (KATHY ZHANG / CHINA DAILY)
On March 25, McDonald’s suspended dine-in services after 6 pm at all its outlets in Hong Kong, Poon was thrown out onto the street. McDonald’s - his home for the past three years - was out of bounds. He’d been living there the whole time.
“I was worried, wandering on the streets, pulling a trolley carrying everything I owned. I didn’t know where I was going to sleep from now on,” the 69-year-old, who only gave his surname, said it was the bleakest day he’d ever had.
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A survey by the Society for Community Organization (SoCO) showed there were some 1,500 homeless people in Hong Kong last year
“McRefugees”, in Hong Kong street argot, refer to people who stay at the global fast-food giant’s 24-hour restaurants all night. They have nowhere else to sleep. They can’t afford to pay rent in one of the most expensive cities in the world.
A survey by the Society for Community Organization (SoCO) showed there were some 1,500 homeless people in Hong Kong last year. Roughly 500 of them would spend their nights hanging out at McDonald’s outlets all night every day.
Poon is a retired office worker, whose unofficial residence had been the 24-hour McDonald’s in Tai Kok Tsui, Kowloon. He moved in with a bag and trolley three years ago, after blowing his life savings and getting evicted from his subdivided apartment.
He recalled more than a dozen people at that time stayed in that McDonald’s and napped there every night.
He read it in a free newspaper handed out on the street that McDonald’s was cutting off evening and overnight services in its restaurants for two weeks from March 25 to April 7 - one of many measures taken by businesses and the government to help stop the coronavirus from spreading.
Homeless people live in Tung Chau Street Park, Sham Shui Po, the poorest district of Hong Kong. (KATHY ZHANG / CHINA DAILY)
Poon fell into high anxiety and that was on top of his pre-existing worries about the horror of COVID-19. There’d just been a big spike in Hong Kong infection cases between late March and mid-April. The invisible enemy was everywhere.
“Sleeping in the streets means there’s more exposure to the virus, and the risk of infection,” Poon told China Daily.
Then April dawned and in Hong Kong, that’s the start of the rainy season and, right on schedule, it rained, non-stop for days. Finding a dry place to sleep wasn’t easy.
Everyone who sleeps on the streets, including the “McRefugees”, came in collision with the city’s strict edict on social distancing proclaimed by the government in late March.
“The living space for homeless people got squeezed because of the pandemic,” a 49-year-old street sleeper surnamed Leung said.
A street sleeper surnamed Leung sits at the entrance of an underpass of Tai Kok Tsui, Kowloon. The underpass has been home of more than ten homeless people for years. (PARKER ZHENG / CHINA DAILY)
Leung lives on a monthly government subsidy. He hasn’t been able to work after a car crash several years ago left him with a severely damaged arm. That cost him his job.
Leung's usual practice had been sneaking into a park or finding a bed in the stands of an empty stadium. Sometimes, he’d sleep on the benches outside public housing estates in Hong Kong’s poorest neighborhood Sham Shui Po. Sometimes, he finds a bench in Tai Kok Tsui. “Sometimes, in a McDonald’s when it’s rainy,” Leung said.
During the most serious days, stadiums in Hong Kong were locked up, and the government ban of more than four people gathering in one place went into effect on March 29. So, Leung had a hard time trying to find a place to get a decent night’s sleep.
Tung Chau Street Park in Sham Shui Po has been home to dozens of homeless people for years. When China Daily visited there on April 7, there were signs everywhere, saying “Please don’t gather”.
There were other inconveniences than not having a sure place to sleep. Leung could't take a shower. All public bathhouses and bathrooms were shut until May 11.
Leung's friends have taken him in, for now. “But, it’s not a long-term solution,” he said.
Homeless people in the city cannot afford masks and disinfection products which are considered crucial weapons in the fight against the virus.
The photo shows a free anti-epidemic package handed out to homeless people by ImpactHK. (PARKER ZHENG / CHINA DAILY)
There aren’t enough affordable masks. They were in short supply for months. Homeless people have to rely on the free masks distributed by public-spirited organizations and businesses.
Poon said he usually uses a mask for two or three days. Leung said the mask he was wearing when China Daily interviewed him had been worn for two days.
Data from the Social Welfare Department show the government between 2019 and 2020 granted HK$23.3 million to three NGOs to provide services for street sleepers.
The team of Salvation Army Hong Kong - one of the three subsidized programs - continues to provide different services to the city’s homeless people amid the pandemic, including emergency shelter, regular outreach visit and body-check and health evaluation services, Dorothy Cho, communications officer of the organization said in a written reply to China Daily.
As of early May, 222 subsidized short-term places have been provided to homeless people, with about 83 percent been occupied, according to the Social Welfare Department.
Other organizations are doing what they can to help “the bottom rung of society”.
A worker at ImpactHK, an NGO, noticed Poon in evident distress on the first day he moved out of McDonald’s. The organization helps homeless and disabled people.
ImpactHK distributes free lunch boxes to homeless people in Tai Kok Tsui on April 7, 2020. (PARKER ZHENG / CHINA DAILY)
The staff member helped Poon get a hotel room in Mong Kok.
ImpactHK raised HK$700,000 (US$90,317) through crowdfunding and started a scheme to provide free, temporary shelter for the city’s “McRefugees” and street sleepers during the pandemic.
“Though there are four people squashed into one room with a small bathroom and a kitchen, it’s still better than having no shelter from rain and wind,” Poon said.
Since the two weeks McDonald’s suspended dine-in services, about 60 “McRefugees” and homeless people have stayed at temporary shelters ImpactHK provides, Jeff Rotmeyer, the NGO’s founder revealed.
From mid April, the increase of infections in Hong Kong saw a decline. It seems good news for some McRefugees - they can return to the fast-food restaurants to nap after McDonald’s resumed its dine-in service on April 8, and for street sleepers - the outdoor sports facilities began to gradually reopen to the public from early May.
In Rotmeyer’s view, the issue about the city’s homelessness needs a long-term solution. “Fast-food restaurants should never be the answer to homelessness.”
While the COVID-19 situation begins to come under control and the government announced phased lifting of anti-epidemic measures, some people warn of the likely increase of the homeless population.
Ng Wai-tung, a social worker at SoCO, worried that more people might be forced to sleep on the streets, thanks to the city’s battered economy.
The SoCO advocates more, free, temporary shelters be provided for homeless people until the plague passes.
With many commercial activities shut down, Hong Kong saw a rise in unemployment. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate between January and March soared to 4.2 percent - the highest since 2010 - according to the Census and Statistics Department.
Both last year’s social unrest forcing business closures and the coronavirus contributed to the higher jobless tally.
The number of people sleeping on Hong Kong streets has grown steadily over a number of years.
The Labour and Welfare Bureau says that from 2014 to 2018, the number of registered street sleepers in Hong Kong has gone up consecutively in each of the five years, from 746 to 1,127. It’s an increase of 51 percent.
Homeless people in Tung Chau Street Park, Sham Shui Po, hang clothes to dray after a rainstorm on April 7, 2020. (KATHY ZHANG / CHINA DAILY)
Of the 1,127 street sleepers, 394 said they can’t afford rent. Unemployment is the leading contributor.
Rotmeyer believes things can be changed. When he talked with China Daily, Lik Chu-kin, a 61-year-old former street sleeper standing beside him, handed out free lunches and anti-epidemic packages to homeless people. He’s become a full-time employee at ImpactHK.
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Lik had slept on an underpass in Happy Valley, Hong Kong Island, for 13 years without much thought of changing his life, before a social worker found him and offered him a job.
Currently, with stable income, Lik rents a subdivided at in Sham Shui Po. He has integrated into the new community. Sometimes, he attends birthday parties of his friends or colleagues.
Rotmeyer called on the public to work together with the government and non-governmental organizations to help the city’s homeless people, by volunteering or making donations.
