The Housing Authority will relax housing arrangements for families with elderly people from January, to foster harmonious families in public rental housing.

It will replace two schemes - Families with Elderly Persons Priority Scheme and Special Scheme for Families with Elderly Persons - with a single plan, Harmonious Families Priority Scheme.

Under the new scheme, applicants on the waiting list will be given a six-month credit waiting time. For those with a nuclear family and elderly family members wishing to live in two nearby flats, only one senior is required in the application, instead of at least two.

These applicants may opt for flats in any non-urban waiting-list districts. Any applying household with at least one senior member, which chooses to live under one roof, can still opt for a flat in any district.

Applicants under the Harmonious Families Transfer Scheme who want to move to a more popular waiting-list district need only live in public rental housing for seven years, instead of 10. The five-year residence-length requirement will remain for families with children below the age of six, or an expected child of 16 weeks of gestation or above.

The scheme has so far benefited 170 families. A quota of 1,000 units will be set aside for the next two-month application exercise in December.

The Harmonious Families Addition Scheme and Harmonious Families Amalgamation Scheme, which have benefited about 2,000 and 150 families since their launch last year, will continue to apply.

The authority's Subsidised Housing Committee chairman Prof Anthony Cheung said today the new arrangements will help promote mutual care between two generations and ease the problem of elderly people being left alone, by offering the families choices of living together or closer to each other.

"The Housing Department can recover more small units for re-allocation to needy families through amalgamation of tenancies. The size of the waiting list can also be reduced through the addition scheme," he said.

About 6,000 families have benefited from the five enhanced housing schemes for fostering harmonious families launched in October last year.