For people living in the West, it’s hard to imagine anyone living in an apartment this small. But for some of the poorest people in Hong Kong this is their home, all 40 square-feet of it.
Hong Kong has long been known for its prosperity and its cosmopolitan success, but beneath this glitzy appearance exists another, more grim reality: a world consisting of squatter huts, sub-divided units, cage homes, and coffin cubicles in dilapidated single-staircase buildings, on rooftops, and in cocklofts. Hong Kong’s glitter conceals the 200,000 people who, no matter hard they try, can never afford anything more than a sliver of space.
The Society for Community Organisation (SoCO), which was formed in 1971 and promotes civil rights, especially for poor people, has released a set of birds-eye images taken by photographer Benny Lam. They feature photos of low-income families, singles, elderly, and the unemployed living in urban slums to highlight the housing problem in Hong Kong.
Director of SoCO, Ho Hei-Wah says: “By taking these photos of inadequate housing we have uncovered the problems and want to arouse public and government concern over the issue.
“These people have to afford an expensive rent rate; it equals to approximately $7-10 per square foot per month and sometimes [people] have to wait years for public rental housing because they have so few in Hong Kong.”
The smallest apartment the Society of Community Organisation visited was 28 square feet, rented by an unemployed single man.
Mr Hei-Wah said: “Hong Kong is regarded as one of the richest cities in the world; however, lurking beneath this prosperity is also extreme poverty.
“Hundreds of thousands of people still live in caged homes and wood-partitioned cubicles, while the unemployed, new-arrived families from China and children in poverty struggle for survival.”
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