The Global Fund For Children

In Cage Homes, Hong Kong Children Learn to Survive

• By Hoa Duong Piyaka on January 19th, 2011
• Category: Blog, East and Southeast Asia

Hong Kong, China – “In the summer it is very hot, and in the winter, very cold,” a 7-year old-boy atop a five-story building explained to his social worker. The social worker retells the story to me one night as we sit in his office, and he describes the conditions of the open-air “home” located on the rooftop of the building, with only a flimsy metal fence to separate this living space from the next. “They live in cages, literal cages,” he explains, showing me pictures of this forlorn child. In the black-and-white image, the boy crouches on the rooftop of a concrete building near Mong Kok, where we are sitting and talking. The small boy in the photo rests his head on crossed arms, and a forsaken soccer ball lies still in the foreground. Laundry dangles on a line off to the side. He is alone. The entire “room” is open air.

Undoubtedly, the situation in Hong Kong is complex. The perception from the international development community is that a wealthy, world-class city—where median incomes are on par with the West, where billionaires live, where some of the most expensive real estate in the world is located—does not need the support of international donors to address social issues. The feeling is that if social needs are persistent, the local government and private individuals are well resourced enough to support their own citizens. Some believe that the people of Hong Kong should take care of their own. In Hong Kong, however, the trend is to donate to mainland China, where the social needs and poverty appear greater, or to countries in Southeast Asia, which are also seen as needing more of a boost. Civic sector philanthropy is just starting to take root. But where does that leave the poor in Hong Kong?

In this city of 7 million people, nearly 1 million are living in relative poverty. It is a homogeneous city—95 percent of the people are Chinese, 2 percent are Filipino, and the rest are mixed—and it remains one of the most densely populated cities in the world. With lack of space and rising housing costs, it has become common for poor Hong Kong residents to cram into cage dwellings that are actually smaller than jail cells, and that are often infested with cockroaches and bedbugs. Estimates vary, but some sources indicate that more than 400,000 working poor are living in such environments.

In the past two years, housing costs have more than doubled. On average, a typical one-bedroom apartment in Hong Kong in 2009 cost $700 to $900 per month. In 2011, Hong Kong was ranked the least affordable urban housing market in the world. As such, growing numbers of local people cannot afford the high costs and get pushed into increasingly crowded public-housing units or squat on public or private land to survive. The result is smaller and smaller spaces for entire families. Children who grow up in these environments generally lag behind their peers due to lack of learning materials, books, nurturing environments, study space, Internet access, and parents with the time and education level to help them with their coursework.

The organization I am visiting works with 200 families, with children ranging in age from 10 weeks to 18 years, living in Sham Shui Po and Mong Kok, as well as in low-income and immigrant communities in areas like Tin Shui Wai and Yuen Long. The organization’s five-person team works to connect these families with housing resources, cash assistance, healthcare, and educational programs. In addition, the team has established a network of organizations working with people at the margins. The team members provide information concerning services and advocate for the rights of the poor. Children are involved in their public campaigns. Their role has evolved into part social worker, part policy advocate.

Four staff members and one volunteer, whom I observe sitting in quiet concentration at their laptops when I arrive, make up this team. All of them look like they are in college or recently graduated. The director confirms that everyone is under 30, except for one person who does not appear much older. They are all social workers by training, but instead of working for the government, they decided to work on their own to fill in the gaps, to reach the people whom even the government programs were not able to access. They banded together to focus on this because they felt compelled to work on issues of social concern after studying masters degrees in the field. They are mostly from Hong Kong and can sympathize with the challenges of the families they assist.

As we talk about the situation of cubicle housing, the director explains the major challenges to their work. “There is poverty in Hong Kong. There are people living in cubicle housing. I would sum up the main challenges as three things: security, inclusion, and empowerment. By security I mean security of condition and income; by inclusion I mean being treated on par with all residents regardless of where you come from; and empowerment, feeling that you can do something about it, that it’s possible to change.”

Because it’s late in the evening, we can’t go visit the families. But the director tells me the story of the 7-year-old boy in the photos he handed me when I first arrived. The boy was living with his mother on a rooftop, exposed to the elements, without shelter overhead. His mother came from mainland China, and his father was a local. The father abandoned them, and due to laws governing work permits and benefits for new arrivals, the mother is unable to gain benefits. She tried to find work, but that was difficult without education and social networks.

The boy still lives on the roof with his mother. This organization met the family through word of mouth, visited them, and functions as a quasi–social work team, educating them about the resources available to them in the city, assisting them with forms when necessary, and connecting them to resources. The organization linked the boy and his mother with social services. The boy is now enrolled in school, and his mother is working part-time.

Later that night, on my way back to the train station, I glance upward. In the dazzling lights of the shop signs, I wonder how many people are sleeping up there, and in other parts of the city—living in cages and cubicle homes, trying to survive in an increasingly crowded Hong Kong.