Public housing turned hostel to open in Hong Kong

Hong Kong's first public housing block in Shek Kip Mei has been converted into a youth hostel and is expected to welcome its first group of guests on Friday.

Built in 1954, the Mei Ho House was to resettle squatters who were left homeless after the tragic Shek Kip Mei fire in that year, and was the city's first resettlement block which started Hong Kong's public housing policy.

As a partner of the government's Revitalizing Historic Buildings Scheme, the Hong Kong Youth Hostels Association (YHA) revamped the grade-two historic building and will offer 129 hostel rooms which can accommodate more than 300 guests with a breakfast-included fare as little as HK$300 per night.

With HK$300, an overnight bed in a 26 sq ft dormitory which consist of four sets of bunk beds and two shared bathrooms can be arranged for association members. A double room costs HK$680 a night and a family room sleeping four costs HK$1,620.

Compared with YHA's hostels in other international cities like Sydney, Boston, London and New York, the prices of Mei Ho House are reasonable and competitive, according to association chairman Michael Wong Yik-Kam.

The cost of the revitalizing project was strictly controlled within the government's budget which was approved by the Legislative Council, Wong said, and the overall cost was around HK$ 220 million.

"Considering the inflation and fast-climbing construction prices, we used various ways to control our cost during this project," he said, "we adopted fixed-price contract with construction partners and a large number of volunteers had participated."

"Heritage of Mei Ho House", a museum displaying the history of the public housing block located in the hostel opens on Monday.

The museum preserved four of the original units of the H-shaped public housing building in 1950s and 1970s, while public toilets and communal washrooms and corridor cooking areas have been reconstructed.

The museum will display 1,200 exhibits and 166 former residents will serve as guides to share their stories, demonstrating the extremely cramped living space of Hong Kong's bottom residents and the "Hong Kong Spirits" -- their determination to improve living condition by hard working and the neighborhood friendship.

Many of the old residents of the resettlement public housing blocks has been interviewed, and the famous movie director John Woo Yu-Sen was one of them.

One of the volunteer guides Tsui Lin-foon, a 60-year-old woman grew up at the Mei Ho Public Housing bloc and lived there for 23 years said that she was excited to see her old home become useful again.

The time squeezed with six family members in the 120 sq ft unit was inconvenient and tough, she said, but it was also full of happiness, caring and warmth.