Hong Kong has an estimated 2,000 homeless people, the highest level in 24 years, as some mainland China-based Hongkongers returned home due to factory closures and COVID-19 outbreaks, according to a welfare concern group.

Government numbers understated the problem as many of the homeless didn’t register, said the Society for Community Organization (Soco). As of late last year, the city had about 1,500 street sleepers, the highest number since the 1997 handover, Social Welfare Department data show.

Some Hongkongers who had been working or residing in Macao and mainland China had returned to Hong Kong after they lost their jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic, Soco said. They became homeless as they couldn’t afford the rents in a city with some of the world’s highest property prices.

One such worker, going by the name Ah Lick, said he lost his job as a dishwasher in Hong Kong last year as the pandemic devastated the city’s restaurant trade. He had been living across the border in mainland China, where rents are much cheaper than in Hong Kong.

He became a “McRefugee” — sleeping in 24-hour McDonald’s outlets because government-run accommodation for street sleepers was full. Lately, he found some casual work and rented a room together with several others.

Another man, known as Ah Ming, had been a McRefugee in Hong Kong for much of the past three years, after the Dongguan factory where he worked closed. The number of street sleepers had gone up considerably from three years ago, he said.

Between 2016 and 2020, there were 222 beds in government-subsidized accommodation for homeless people. This month will see the first increase, of six beds, since 2016.

These extra beds were far too few to help reduce the number of street sleepers, said Soco community organizer Ng Wai-tung. The six-month period that people were permitted to stay in these beds was also too short, Ng said.

Ng’s group is among non-government organizations that provide accommodation for homeless people. It is planning to increase the number of beds from 20 to 53 in the coming three years. The group is now looking for about HK$7 million (US$900,000) to finance renovation and repairs required for the expansion.

From Saturday to June 26, Soco is holding an exhibition in Sham Shui Po, a district populated with street sleepers, about the plight of Hong Kong homeless people.

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