Urban Gem — Mei Ho House and Its Heritage

The Mei Ho House was once a public housing estate. In this area of Shek Kip Mei, the early residents lived in the wooden huts of a shanty town during the 1950s, a time when poverty was the norm and survival was the only aspiration. Many of those living in this area were refugees from China’s civil war.

The Christmas day of 1953 brought to the residents of the squatter area an enormous disaster. At around 9:30pm in one home a fire started by an accidental drop of a kerosene lamp. It became uncontrollable within ten minutes. The fire continued and destroyed most of the settlement area well into midnight. More than 53,000 people were on the streets within the short span of a few hours. In 1954, the Colonial Government built Mei Ho House to give home to the tens of thousands of whom the fire rendered homeless.

The Mei Ho House was the resettlement housing that the Hong Kong Government built on the original site of the settlement area. The original resettlement consisted of eight six-storey resettlement blocks (A-H). They were H-shaped structures, which would become the prototype of the earlier public housing projects in Hong Kong. Indeed, the Shek Kip Mei Fire and the resultant government accommodation of residents marked the beginning of the Colonial Government’s general housing policies in Hong Kong. The first projects were public housing estates.

In 2012, Mei Ho House’s Block H stands as the only building that remains on its original site. The Government had plans to revitalize this part of Shek Kip Mei, and Mei Ho House Block H was preserved. It now shines also as the only remaining Mark 1 H-shaped resettlement block in Hong Kong. The Youth Hostels Association now manages the building, providing room and board to visitors as a city hostel. Most importantly, the YHA also oversees the cultural mandate of the revitalized Mei Ho House.




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Post by Helen Yu (Chestnut Journal) | Mar 27, 2025