Housing Authority
	Housing Department

The primary role of the Hong Kong Housing Authority (HA) is to provide subsidised public rental housing (PRH) to low income families who cannot afford private rental accommodations. It also operates interim housing (IH) and transit centres to provide temporary accommodations to families facing short-term difficulties in finding suitable accommodations.

As of September 2007^[1], the HA provided 684 300 PRH/IH flats for 1 978 200 persons, or 29% of Hong Kong's total population.

As of December 2007, the membership of the HA comprised 26 non-official members and four official members. Appointments are made by the Chief Executive. To help forge closer collaboration between the HA and Government in the provision of housing services, the then Secretary for Housing, Planning and Lands has been appointed as the Chairman of the HA. With the reorganisation of policy bureaux of the Government Secretariat on 1 July 2007, the Secretary for Transport and Housing has taken up the position of the Chairman of the HA. The Director of Housing continues to be the Vice-chairman.

Six standing committees, together with a number of sub-committees have been formed under the HA to formulate and oversee policies in specified areas.

Chart 1: Organisation of the Housing Authority

The Housing Department (HD) acts as the executive arm of the HA to implement its policies and those set by its standing committees. The HD is headed by the Permanent Secretary for Transport and Housing (Housing) who also assumes the office of the Director of Housing. He is supported by four Deputy Directors who are responsible for policy formulation and overseeing their implementation. As of 1 December 2007, the HD had a strength of 8 539 staff, of which 7 439 were civil servants and 1 100 were contract staff.

Chart 2: Organisation of the Housing Department