In the backyard of Hong Kong’s wealthy, hidden pockets of squalid housing
Many residential buildings found with exposed wires and no fire alarm, and filled with tiny subdivided homes, in an area with household incomes double the city’s average
Luxury development and constant property price increases have created an underbelly of squalid housing for poorer families crammed into tiny subdivided flats in one of Hong Kong’s most affluent districts.
A new study by social workers and academics reflects the reality that amid the glitzy financial towers, plush apartment blocks and trendy shops of Central and Western district, where the median household income is double the city’s average, thousands of less fortunate neighbours are trapped in dilapidated and unsafe homes.
The study, released by the community organisation Caritas and the University of Hong Kong on Sunday, found that of the 114 buildings constructed before 1993 that they surveyed in the older neighbourhoods further west, just over half had flats split into smaller units by their owners and leased out separately.
In these 64 buildings, mostly in Sai Ying Pun, Shek Tong Tsui and Sai Wan, each of the 393 flats had become, on average, two to three homes. Some were divided into as many as seven units, becoming windowless cubicles as little as 40 sq ft in size.
“When it comes to subdivided flats, most people think Sham Shui Po, Tsuen Wan or Yau Tsim Mong,” Caritas social work supervisor Benjamin Sin Chiu-hang said. “We wanted to highlight how in such a wealthy area like Western district, subdivided flats do exist and the figure is actually pretty substantial.”