Hong Kong’s poor and destitute have long been unable to afford anything but subdivided living spaces. Now Beijing wants the local government to rid the city of these tiny units and “cage homes” by 2049.
His space is so small that he piles boxes of personal belongings and clothes on the bed, which means he cannot stretch out fully when he sleeps. He has a sink, and a bathroom with no door, but there is no kitchen. There are more than 220,000 people like Leung, living in Hong Kong’s worst housing. The city has about 110,000 subdivided flats, mostly in dilapidated buildings in Kowloon and the New Territories.
Leung’s current accommodation reminds him of his childhood, when he and his two brothers squeezed with their parents into a subdivided flat before moving to a public rental home in Sham Shui Po. Despite their state, the government has long adopted a policy of merely ensuring their safety rather than phasing them out, as many believe the city’s poorest need these homes.
It said the median area of these units was 124 sq ft, but social workers estimate that some are as small as 20 sq ft. More than 60 per cent of the units are in Kowloon, about 24 per cent are in the New Territories and the rest are on Hong Kong Island. An irony of Hong Kong’s housing scene is that on a per-square-foot basis, the city’s poorest people pay rents comparable to those for private flats, or even more.
When the Society for Community Organisation interviewed 432 households living in tiny spaces in April last year, it found that the median monthly rent was between HK$4,500 and HK$6,500 for traditional subdivided flats – in which a standard unit is partitioned into two or more smaller spaces – HK$2,300 for tiny bed spaces, and HK$2,800 for cubicles.
Originally from Hainan province, she came to the city with her sons in 2015 after marrying again, but her second marriage to a Hongkonger ended in divorce too. “The place is just too small for the three of us,” she says, adding that her older son often complains about the arrangement.
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