Addressing youth housing issues : an evaluation of the youth hostel scheme

Abstract

Launched in the 2011-2012 Policy Address by the Hong Kong Government, the Youth Hostel Scheme (YHS) aims to provide affordable and private living spaces for working youths. This study evaluates the effectiveness of YHS by examining the factors that influence tenant satisfaction and identifying areas for policy and operational improvement. Both qualitative interviews and quantitative survey data were collected from tenants across various YHS hostels. The study identifies key satisfaction factors and evaluates the impact of each of the factor on the overall tenant satisfaction, including private space, affordability, living environment, commute time, surrounding amenities, wealth accumulation, communal facilities, safety and security, voluntary activities, room design and long-term viability. The findings reveal that while affordability and living environment are statistically significant predictors of satisfaction, other factors—such as the quality of communal facilities, concerns about safety in converted hostels and dissatisfaction with the mandatory volunteering policy, emerged from qualitative insights as critical to tenant experience but were not significant in regression analysis. In addition, policy-specific challenges such as the age limit of 30 and the loss of Public Rental Housing eligibility were found to undermine the attractiveness of YHS for working youth. Furthermore, insights from NGO hostel operators revealed operational constraints under YHS 2.0, particularly in hotel-converted hostels. In addressing these gaps, this study fills a void in existing literature by offering an empirically grounded evaluation of YHS. Moreover, this research provides recommendations to enhance tenant satisfaction and strengthen the scheme’s capacity to better meet the housing needs of working youth in Hong Kong.