Home ownership is key to Hong Kong rebuilding civic trust

This month’s Legislative Council election once again put Hong Kong’s political participation in the spotlight. Despite official calls for civic engagement and a modest improvement over the previous election, voter turnout remained historically low. Among younger voters in particular, a sense of distance from institutional politics was palpable.

This was not simply a matter of apathy or protest abstention. Rather, it reflected a deeper unease about whether the city’s political institutions still speak to their lived realities and future prospects.

Elections are moments when underlying social tensions surface. In Hong Kong, one of those tensions is housing. While campaign platforms touched on many livelihood issues, the election also revealed a quieter truth: political participation is closely tied to whether people feel they have a durable stake in the city. For many young Hongkongers, that stake has become increasingly fragile.

Hong Kong is often described as one of the world’s most expensive cities, yet this label understates the deeper significance of housing. Home ownership is not merely a financial milestone; it is a social dividing line, a marker of belonging and a force shaping how citizens relate to politics and governance.

For decades, unaffordable housing has been at the centre of public frustration, especially among younger generations. Much has been written about how soaring prices undermine social mobility, delay family formation and fuel anxiety about the future. Less attention has been paid to how access to home ownership shapes whether people feel invested in civic institutions and motivated to engage in formal political processes, such as elections.

Governments around the world have long recognised that housing policy is also social policy. From post-war Europe to East Asia, subsidised home ownership schemes were designed to both improve living standards as well as stabilise communities and cultivate responsible citizenship. Hong Kong’s Home Ownership Scheme (HOS), introduced in 1978, was part of this tradition. By allowing eligible households to purchase flats at substantial discounts, the scheme provided a pathway to ownership for low- and middle-income families otherwise locked out of the private market.

  

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