May 27, 2010
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There are almost 100,000 Hong Kong residents living in this kind of 'cage home.' Behind the prosperity, unimaginable bad living environment have been long existing since 1950's. Occupants' welfare, basic needs, human right are nearly completely ignored by the Government. A more detailed description is extracted from CNN as below:
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Chung lives in a 625 square foot (58.06 square meter) flat here with 18 strangers. The place is sectioned into tiny cubicles made of wooden planks and wire mesh. Everything he has acquired over the years -- clothes, dishes, figurines, a tired TV set -- is squeezed into this tiny cube, a modernized version of what is known here as a cage home.
Occupants have less privacy, but the temperatures don't get as high as in the wooden-mesh variety. A thermometer in Chung's home reached 34 degrees Celsius (93 degrees Fahrenheit). Sometimes it gets so hot, Chung said, that he wants to die. Chung used to be a security guard. In the good old days he earned about $500 (HK$3,875) per month. But as the economic crisis set in, his full time job went to part time work until he was laid off this past summer.
As he stared into his bank passbook, Chung lamented that he wouldn't be able to make the $150 rent (HK$1,160) this month -- these cubes aren't cheap. They are stacked on two levels -- $100 (HK$775) for a cube on the upper deck and $150 for the lower bunk. The lower cubes are more expensive because you can just barely stand upright in them.
The 19 occupants share two toilets. A small rubber hose attached to a leaky faucet is what they use to wash themselves. Social workers who monitor the apartments said the electricity is donated, so a few of them have TVs. One person on the upper deck has an aquarium.
Chung, 67, is now waiting for welfare to kick in and is on a long list for public housing. The government says it is doing its best to meet its citizens' needs, but Chung says he has lost all hope. Economic recovery or not, he feels forgotten.
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I don't know how to describe my hurtful feeling ... I cannot imagine how much stress they are experiencing ... Actually, they are not lazy. Most of them mostly work 10-12 hours a day, but earn a little ... It seems that they are doomed to stay there ... and be exploited. For me, there is a fire burning inside of me. I feel that there's a strong passion to walk with the poor and listened their little voices. I really hope that I can spare time in working for tthe poor, though I don't know my future career/ministry. I love the verse in the Psalm,
'Yet I am poor and needy; may the Lord think of me. You are my help and my deliverer; O my God, do not delay.' Psalm 40:17
Lord, let Your righteousness, love and mercy go to the hearts of the poor. Amen.
