City-Youth Empowerment Project of Department of Applied Social Sciences had successfully conducted the Homeless Outreach Population Estimation (H.O.P.E.) 2015, a city-wide homeless street count on 29 October 2015, and announced and reported the result in the press conference on 8 January.  The street count was participated by City University of Hong Kong, Lingnan University, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, The University of Hong Kong, Christian Concern for the Homeless Association, Salvation Army, Society for Community Organization (SoCO), and St James’ Settlement.

The report stated a total number of 1614 homeless persons were counted by the volunteers in one single night. The homeless usually spend their nights on the streets, in the 24-hour fast food restaurants, transit centres and urban hostels for single persons. The reported number has raised by 14% compared to the first street count held in the H.O.P.E. 2013 by City University of Hong Kong.  The raise reflects an underlying seriousness of the problem.

During the count, the volunteers had a chance to interview and share with some homeless people on the very harsh environment and the extreme difficulty in getting rid of poverty as well as the inability to afford the very high rents in Hong Kong.

H.O.P.E. “is a way for the young people of Hong Kong to hold themselves accountable to the most vulnerable people living in our community”, said the project convener of City-Youth Empowerment Project Dr. Elaine Au.   The joint effort among universities and NGOs had greatly facilitated the counting of the homeless in one night and to render us more accurate numbers and data for future policy-making in Hong Kong. It will also facilitate the community organizations in lobbying for more community resources to help the homeless on both individual and systemic levels.

For more information, please visit the website: http://www.cityu.edu.hk/youeprj/hopehk2015.htm