The first to deal with must be public housing (that's what our former Tung proposed...). Although I'm not a planning economy fans, but I do admit that when market is not working some forms of methods/regulations should apply... Gradual asset appreciation is not bad, but certainly not to this type of scale tieing to the economy. The society has inserted the potential to the wrong way, which is a waste and it's not sustainable...
Secondly, I would try thinking of lowering the transportation cost... In HK, the network is there, but it's too costy for the poverty to travel between different regions to work, to study... Subsidiary 50% or 70% will certainly help quite a bit...