Expensive Cages
One of Hong Kong's more shameful legacies is the continued existence of cage homes.
Approximately 100,000 Hong Kongers live in 'metal mesh boxes' in older districts such as Sham Shui Po, To Kwa Wan and Kwun Tong. Too poor to move elsewhere, it's either a cage or nothing for the lowest income earners.
Yet a news article points out that the rent paid per square foot is actually higher than the rate for some luxury flats:
Despite the financial crisis, cage-home rents have not decreased. The median rent for a cage home in 2004 was HK$40 per sq ft. That rose to HK$44.40 per sq ft in 2006 and to HK$60 this year ... in some extreme cases, cage dwellers are paying as much as HK$93.30 per sq ft.
At Three Bays, a block of luxury flats in Stanley, the rent for a four-bedroom home of about 3,900 sq ft is HK$280,000 a month, or HK$72 per sq ft ...
Because of the earning disparity, the poor lose up to 40% of their income to rent alone, and that for an tiny living area barely big enough to hold a mattress, and having to share a kitchen and washroom with 10 other people.
As one community worker put it:
"The median living space is 18 square feet, but you hit your head on the ceiling when you try to turn."
To make matters worse, in the height of summer the temperatures inside the cage homes can be up to 5 degrees hotter than outdoors, which forces some residents into the streets to sleep. And inevitably such conditions attract rats, cockroaches and other miseries.
But the slum lords don't care, because in a crisis they can raise rents knowing that there will be plenty of potential renters desperate enough to fork over what little they earn to live like an animal in a zoo.
Hell already punishes the avaricious, but there must be a special room reserved for those who also strip away the dignity of their fellow man.
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