I cannot move inside the cage home: 74-year-old resident

A 74-year-old man said he cannot move inside the 20-square-feet cage home he lives in, and that he doesn't know if he can live to see the day when he gets public housing.

He is one of the residents who attended a press conference by Society for Community Organization on Sunday to share their misery living in ultra small partition homes and cage homes.

The man surnamed Lau said he lives inside a flat which is sub divided into 26 units. He paid HK$2,400 a month to rent to 20-square-feet unit, which he can only put a bed.

“I cannot move in there. Sometimes I have to put a chair on the bed,” he said.

He has been queuing for public housing for almost three years, and said he cannot see the end of the tunnel.

“I don't know if I can live to the day when I am allocated public housing,” he said.

Soco has collected information on 70 flats, including 25 normal flats and 45 subdivided flats – including partition flats.

It found the rent for partition flats to be 107 percent higher than the property's rateable value estimated by Rating and Valuation Department, whereas those for normal flats to be 37 percent higher.

In the worst case, the rent of a subdivided flat is nine times more than the rateable value.

The group wants the government to cap the rent for subdivided flats to 120 percent of their rateable values.

With government officials including Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po heading down to visit partition flat residents recently, Soco called upon the officials not to use the visits as photo opportunities but to put in effort to regulate rent of partition flats and to speed up provision of public housing.
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