Hong Kong rents have stayed high - despite political turmoil, severe recession and the global pandemic. The economy is expected to shrink up to 8 per cent, and unemployment at six per cent in 2020. The rent has pulled back roughly 9 per cent over 2019. High rents and surge in joblessness are making it harder for workers and working poor to find and hold on to even meagre living spaces. The average rent for a bed space of 18 square feet rose 15 per cent over last year. Yet life must go on. Hongkongers are survivalists. They are not strangers to hardships. If anything, they will continue to make a living out of life, and a life out of living.
Housing inequality, cages homes, street living, unemployment, failed businesses, high rentals, pandemic, and what nots, what is there that the average Hong Kong man has not seen?
In Hong Kong, the official homeless count - "street sleepers" helped by NGOs is 1,423. The uncounted numbers are way higher. Hundreds of thousands are just scraping by - people who live in spaces under 100 square feet, cage homes; people who gathered in rooftops, tunnels and footbridges; people who do not have their own living space.
Sounds depressing - don’t be, because life is not a bed of roses; because from the dumps, there will come another ‘Rag to Riches’ story waiting to break out, waiting to be heard.
Hong Kong, ‘the world's most expensive place to buy a property’ is not about to lose its prestigious status.