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Dennis Lee

Subdivided flats and cage homes are Hong Kong’s shame. With our financial discipline, land sale premiums, tax revenue and sound investments, the government has built up substantial fiscal reserves over the years and invested in expensive infrastructure.
This includes a world-class international airport, an expanding mass transit and high-speed rail system, the world’s longest sea bridge, a cultural district, a cruise terminal, theme parks, a new sports park and stadium, a third airport runway and more. We have also spent heavily on economic stimulus, fireworks, drone shows and other measures to revive the city’s economy.
Given all that spending, though, we have somehow failed to eliminate some 110,000 subdivided units to help our most unfortunate citizens. It is not because of a lack of resources or means but, rather, a matter of choice.
For far too long, we turned our heads away from society’s deep-rooted problems and consigned the poor’s suffering and anguish to the rarely visited dark corners of the city. We believed the myth that, “If you work long and hard, you’ll be able to own your own house”.
The poor were accused of not working hard enough, even though this ignores the lack of opportunities and other hurdles facing those born into disadvantaged lives. It also ignores the structural housing problems that built up generation after generation, making it hard to point fingers at any particular administration, department, developer or individual.
The current administration might offer some light at the end of the tunnel. Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu has made good on a promise in his policy address last year by forming a task force to tackle the issue of subdivided units.


The central government has tasked Hong Kong with getting rid of subdivided flats and cage homes by 2049 – the centenary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. While we should not need Beijing’s edict to wake up to the suffering of fellow Hongkongers, it is never too late to face the problem head-on.
However, do we really need another 25 years? That is basically the same time frame that SpaceX CEO Elon Musk envisions for humans to colonise Mars and build a self-sustaining community on a planet 228 million km from Earth. We are not talking about rocket science in Hong Kong, just getting less than 3 per cent of the city’s population into decent living conditions.
The obvious solution is to provide sufficient public rental housing. It appears the government is taking the conventional approach by releasing new public rental units, including light public housing, while taking back existing units from those who abuse the system by, for example, not living there, owning properties elsewhere, subleasing the units for profit, or exceeding the limits for assets and income.
In parallel, the government’s task force on subdivided units is discussing setting “minimum standards of living conditions”, including safety and hygiene requirements and optimal living space. This would see most of the dilapidated units remain for some time, perhaps during a transitional period before the standards take effect.


These messages are confusing. Is the goal to eliminate subdivided units and cage homes or merely to regulate them?
So far, the government has taken baby steps and chipped away at the edges of the housing problem – at the end of June, there were over 120,000 general applications for public rental housing. Establishing a “minimum standard” for subdivided units would simply validate and legalise the practice. It would also risk flooding the market with even more such units, given the persistently high rental costs in the city and sluggish economic recovery.
Instead, the government should move away from distant deadlines and rip off the bandage now, weeding out subdivided units and cage homes and avoid passing the buck. It is not hard to imagine the next administration assuming power and being distracted by other pressing issues.
Remember Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor’s initiative to tackle unauthorised building works, especially for village houses, or her “Lantau Tomorrow Vision”? The rhetoric around them cooled when successors decided not to continue with the same mandate.


When Hong Kong needed to quarantine patients and their close contacts at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, we were able to provide 50,000 beds at nine isolation centres in a very short time. The government managed this because the pandemic was seen as a crisis. However, for some reason, our poorest citizens living in squalid conditions is not considered a crisis. This is wrong.
Instead of spending HK$3.75 million (US$483,000) of taxpayers’ money each month to maintain the now-vacant isolation facilities, they should be sanitised, restored and reassembled as temporary homes for people currently in subdivided units. Rather than spending months discussing the “minimum standard for living conditions”, the task force could use its resources to identify and relocate those most in need of a decent living space.
These kind of units are not meant to be permanent but would serve as a stepping stone to a better life for the tenants. While eliminating subdivided flats and cage homes might not seem likely to generate financial returns, a strong middle class is the engine for a stable, affluent society and the government has every incentive to end this problem without further delay.
Let’s look forward to wiping out all subdivided units and cage homes a long time before humans colonise Mars. The race is on.


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There is no reason ending the shame of subdivided flats and cage homes should be on the same timeline as humans colonising Mars


There is no reason ending the shame of subdivided flats and cage homes should be on the same timeline as humans colonising Mars.


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Hong Kong reopens: life after quarantine

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Expresses the views, ideas and conclusions of the author. (Eg. Enough of Crazy Rich Asians, think of crazy poor Hongkongers.)


Hongkongers living in squalor is a crisis. It’s time to treat it as such

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}There is no reason ending the shame of subdivided flats and cage homes should be on the same timeline as humans colonising Mars

There is no reason ending the shame of subdivided flats and cage homes should be on the same timeline as humans colonising Mars