Hong Kong
STREET SOCCER HK & SOCIETY FOR COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION
Street Soccer HK and SOCO run football training and coaching sessions, the annual selection tournament, the Hong Kong Street Soccer League, and regular fundraising events for the homeless team which represents Hong Kong in the Homeless World Cup.
The purpose of their tournament is to gain public support, raise awareness about homelessness, and particularly to improve players’ self-image and self-esteem.
Country statistics
4 out of 189 in Human Development Index ratings (UNDP, 2022)
$55,170 average annual salary per person (World Bank, 2025)
More than 1.4 million people live below the poverty line (Habitat for Humanity, 2025)
At 1,189 square kilometres and with 7.4 million inhabitants, the geographically dense, high-socioeconomic country Hong Kong is ranked 4th in the Human Development Index. (It sits behind just Iceland, Switzerland, and Norway (UNDP, 2025)). However, housing costs and other cost-of-living pressures underpin the semi-autonomous region’s homelessness challenges—rent per square metre is among the most expensive in the world, and Hong Kong’s property market has been named the world’s most expensive for 13 consecutive years (Habitat for Humanity, 2025).
Almost half of Hong Kong’s population lives in public housing. As of 2023, the average wait time for public housing was 5.3 years (Habitat for Humanity, 2025). The COVID-19 pandemic further exacerbated the housing inequality. As have recent crackdowns by the ruling Chinese government, which has had a chilling effect on activism, protest, and press freedom.
In 2025, an estimated 1,500 people were sleeping rough in the country; based on a 2020 report, at least 1.4 million were living below the poverty line (Habitat for Humanity, 2025).
STORIES from the region
