She said her attempts to obtain financial aid from some NGOs and charities were denied because, like all asylum seekers in the city, she does not have a Hong Kong identity card.
More than three dozen asylum seekers were affected by the blaze, and some like Alana claim they did not receive financial and other help given to the rest of the victims.
She said that on the day of the fire, she was even denied food vouchers and power banks being distributed to survivors at a nearby government-run shelter.
“I was so angry,” she said, recounting how she felt when told she was ineligible. “We are human beings. We also need help.”
Five people died and 43 others were injured on April 10, in Hong Kong’s deadliest blaze in years. The 16-storey New Lucky House was filled with subdivided flats, often the only housing that the city’s 14,700 asylum seekers can afford.
Hong Kong does not grant asylum because it has not signed the 1951 UN Refugee Convention. Instead, it offers “non-refoulement” protection, a pledge not to send individuals back to countries where their lives might be in danger.
While they await a decision on their refugee status, claimants are provided with HK$3,200 (US$409) in non-cash subsidies per month while they remain in the city, but they cannot work and are not provided with Hong Kong identity cards.
The International Social Service Hong Kong Branch (ISS-HK), the NGO contracted by the government to distribute aid to asylum seekers, said there were 37 claimants living in New Lucky House at the time of the fire.
Niki Wong, programme manager at the Branches of Hope charity, said that in a crisis, aid should go to all, regardless of residence status.
He said asylum seekers had “severely limited capacity” to deal with emergencies.
“Needs should be the only criteria for receiving emergency support when there is a crisis,” he added.
On the day of the fire, survivors were sent to the nearby Henry G Leong Yau Ma Tei Community Centre, where staff from the Social Welfare Department and Yau Tsim Mong District Office handed out food, blankets and mattresses.
Other organisations, including the Hong Kong Red Cross and Yan Chai Hospital, were also understood to have been there, distributing other forms of aid, including power banks and food coupons.
The Social Welfare Department, Yau Tsim Mong District Office, and the Hong Kong Red Cross told the Post that they provided aid regardless of whether individuals had Hong Kong identity cards.
Yan Chai Hospital did not respond to repeated inquiries.
In the days that followed, fire victims received HK$5,000 through The Lok Sin Tong Benevolent Society, Kowloon’s caring fund.
In response to the Post, the organisation provided a link to the application criteria, which said aid recipients had to be Hong Kong residents.
Hong Kong Christian Service, which set up a booth outside the building to refer eligible households to the Benevolent Society’s emergency assistance, told the Post that asylum seekers in financial difficulty could approach ISS-HK for help.
ISS-HK told the Post that immediately after the fire, it provided counselling to asylum seekers at the site, checked if they needed alternative accommodation, and distributed food and toiletry packs.
Kung Kit-ling, founding director of Christian NGO Ultimate United, said she had been handing out supermarket coupons, basic appliances and other items to about a dozen asylum seekers affected by the fire.
While she secured some funding for them, she said it was much less than what other occupants of the building received. She said many NGOs she approached referred her to ISS-HK.
“Quite a lot of funding was restricted to Hong Kong ID holders,” she said. “It made it very hard for us to help [asylum seekers].”
Bless*, a 35-year-old asylum seeker from the Philippines, said she had to deal with a rat problem at her 13th-floor flat as she could not replace the front door, which was broken in the fire.
She said her landlord refused to replace it unless she contributed toward the cost, which she was told was about HK$1,800.
Like Alana, she said she had been refused assistance repeatedly, including at the Yau Tsim Mong Community Centre on the day of the fire.
She had also sought counselling for recurring panic attacks as she no longer felt safe living in the building with her five-year-old son.
Bless said if she had financial help, she would move immediately, but she could not put up the two-month rental deposit for a new flat.
“I cannot raise that money,” she said. “I hope to find a landlord who will have a heart.”
*Names changed at interviewee’s request.
