The dark side of Hong Kong
2013-02-07 20:31
Hong Kong - For many of the richest people in Hong Kong,
one of Asia's wealthiest cities, home is a mansion with an expansive view from
the heights of Victoria Peak.
For some of the poorest, like Leung Cho-yin, home is a
metal cage.
The 67-year-old former butcher pays $167 a month for one
of about a dozen wire mesh cages resembling rabbit hutches crammed into a
dilapidated apartment.
The cages, stacked on top of each other, measure 1.5m².
To keep bedbugs away, Leung and his roommates put thin pads, bamboo mats on
their cages' wooden planks instead of mattresses.
"I've been bitten so much I'm used to it," said
Leung. "There's nothing you can do
about it. I've got to live here. I've got to survive," he said as he let
out a phlegmy cough.
Some 100 000 people live in what's known as inadequate
housing, according to the Society for Community Organisation, a social welfare
group.
The category also includes apartments subdivided into
tiny cubicles or filled with coffin-sized wood and metal sleeping compartments
as well as rooftop shacks.
Forced by skyrocketing housing prices to live in cramped,
dirty and unsafe conditions, their plight also highlights one of the biggest
headaches facing Hong Kong's unpopular Beijing-backed leader. Leung Chun-ying
took office as Hong Kong's chief executive in July pledging to provide more
affordable housing in a bid to cool the anger.
Home prices rose 23% in the first 10 months of 2012 and
have doubled since bottoming out in 2008, the International Monetary Fund said
in a report last month. Rents have followed a similar trajectory.
The soaring costs are putting decent homes out of reach
of a large portion of the population while stoking resentment of the government,
which controls all land for development, and a coterie of wealthy property
developers.
Housing costs have been fuelled by easy credit thanks to
ultralow interest rates that policymakers can't raise because the currency is
pegged to the dollar.
Money-flooding in from mainland Chinese and foreign
investors looking for higher returns has exacerbated the rise.
In his inaugural policy speech in January, the chief
executive said the inability of the middle class to buy homes posed a threat to
social stability and promised to make it a priority to tackle the housing
shortage.
"Cramped living space in cage homes, cubicle
apartments and sub-divided flats has become the reluctant choice for thousands
of Hong Kong people," he said, as he unveiled plans to boost supply of
public housing.
His comments mark a distinct shift from predecessor Donald
Tsang, who ignored the problem.
Leung slammed
Legislators and activists, however, slammed Leung for a
lack of measures to boost the supply in the short term.
Some 210 000 people are on the waiting list for public
housing, about double from 2006. About a third of Hong Kong's 7.1 million
population lives in public rental flats. When apartments bought with government
subsidies are included, the figure rises to nearly half.
Anger over housing prices is a common theme in
increasingly frequent anti-government protests. Legislator Frederick Fung warns
there will be more if the problem can't be solved. He compared the effect on
the poor to a lab experiment.
"When we were in secondary school, we had some sort
of experiment where we put many rats in a small box. They would bite each
other," said Fung. "When living spaces are so congested, they would
make people feel uneasy, desperate," and angry at the government, he said.
Leung, the cage dweller, had little faith that the
government could do anything to change the situation of people like him.
"It's not whether I believe him or not, but they
always talk this way. What hope is there?" said Leung, who has been living
in cage homes since he stopped working at a market stall after losing part of a
finger 20 years ago. With just a Grade 7 education, he was only able to find
intermittent casual work. He hasn't applied for public housing because he
doesn't want to leave his roommates to live alone and expects to spend the rest
of his life living in a cage.
His only income is $515 in government assistance each
month. After paying his rent, he's left with $350, or about $11.60 a day.
"It's impossible for me to save," said Leung,
who never married and has no children to lean on for support.
Substandard housing
While cage homes, which sprang up in the 1950s to cater
mostly to single men coming in from mainland China, are becoming rarer, other
types of substandard housing such as cubicle apartments are growing as more
families are pushed into poverty. Nearly 1.19 million people were living in
poverty in the first half of last year, up from 1.15 million in 2011, according
to the Hong Kong Council of Social Services. There's no official poverty line
but it's generally defined as half of the city's median income of $1 550 a
month.
Many poor residents have applied for public housing but
face years of waiting. Nearly three-quarters of 500 low-income families
questioned by Oxfam Hong Kong in a recent survey had been on the list for more
than 4 years without being offered a flat.
Lee Tat-fong, is one of those waiting. The 63-year-old is
hoping she and her two grandchildren can get out of the cubicle apartment they
share in their Wan Chai neighbourhood, but she has no idea how long it will
take.
Lee, who suffers from diabetes and back problems, takes
care of Amy, 9, and Steven, 13, because their father has disappeared and their
mother - her daughter - can't get a permit to come to Hong Kong from mainland
China. An uncle occasionally lends a hand.
The three live in a 4.6m², one of seven created by
subdividing an existing apartment.
The room is jammed with their possessions: plastic bags
filled with clothes, an electric fan, Amy's stuffed animals, cooking utensils.
"There's too little space here. We can barely
breathe," said Lee, who shares the bottom bunk with her grandson.
They share the communal kitchen and two toilets with the
other residents. Welfare pays their $451 monthly rent and the three get another
$774 for living expenses but the money is never enough, especially with two
growing children to feed.
Lee said the two
often wanted to have McDonalds because they were still hungry after dinner,
which on a recent night was a meagre portion of rice, vegetables and meat.
The struggle to raise her two grandkids in such
conditions was wearing her out.
"It's exhausting," she said. "Sometimes I
get so pent up with anger, and I cry but no one sees because I hide away."
- AP
