Factors influencing elderly's residential satisfaction under the forced relocation of urban redevelopment / y Li Sai Chung

Abstract

Various studies from different universities indicated that Hong Kong is facing a serious housing problem especially for the singleton elderly. Lack of a viable retirement protection and the new trend of married children to live away their parents causes the elders become the major group of poor living alone in the sub-standard housing units in the old urban districts. The high demand for private flats has provided the impetus for private developers to launch the urban redevelopment projects. In the course of carrying out the redevelopment projects, the elders were forced to displace to a strange new community which makes them lost the social support and impairs their mental well-being. In addition, lack of offering local community relocation would discourage the elders to improve their living condition by opting for re-housing. By contrast, other scholar alleged that the physical characteristics of the housing environment are the major concern which affects the elder’s residential satisfactory the most and the social support from friends and neighbors played only a minor and insignificant role.

In order to explore the factors affecting the relocation choice of the elders upon urban redevelopment, personal in-depth interviews were conducted for 42 elders selected from 3 newly launched urban redevelopment projects. The findings shows that the elders desire for a self-contained public housing unit for improving their living condition but they would give up the chance if the local community relocation is not guaranteed. It is concluded that the elders would sacrifice their living condition in exchange of the local community continuity. Furthermore, the financial ability is the most crucial factor affecting their decision of the living arrangement and their residential satisfactory. Recommendations were proposed to URA for offering the needed elderly local community relocation by building their own rehousing blocks in the targeted districts. Moreover, the URA should focus on promoting building rehabilitation as the alternative for solving the problem of urban decay while would not impair the life of the poverty elders living in the old urban areas.