This photograph taken on August 10, 2024 exhibits retired janitor Chun Loi, 84, sitting on her mattress whereas dealing with electrical followers inside her 50-square-foot windowless one-room flat in Hong Kong. Agence France-Presse
HONG KONG — Even with two electrical followers whirring, retired janitor Chun Loi was sweating profusely in her windowless, one-room flat that swelters throughout Hong Kong’s humid summer time.
Her 50-square-foot room is partitioned with well-worn planks from 4 different small rooms, generally referred to as sub-divided items.
It’s a sweaty however low-cost choice that has proliferated throughout Hong Kong, one of many world’s costliest housing markets.
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Consultants warn that, with 2024 anticipated to be the most well liked yr in recorded historical past, aged folks like Chun residing in Hong Kong’s small, poorly ventilated items face larger dangers.
AFP joined a Crimson Cross Hong Kong group that works with households that stay in items like Chun’s to enhance their residing circumstances.
“The warmth makes it very onerous for me… I really feel drained,” the 84-year-old instructed AFP on Saturday, when the temperature crept previous 32 levels Celsius (90 levels Fahrenheit).
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“I attempt to keep in as a lot as potential with my followers… In any other case, the place are you able to go? It’s embarrassing to remain in eating places and malls if I’m not consuming something,” Chun stated.
Her unit in Hong Kong’s Kowloon area prices about HK$2,000 (US$256) a month.
She has waited greater than six years for a public housing condominium to turn out to be accessible, however with solely 430,000 focused for development within the subsequent decade, her probabilities of getting one stay out of attain for now.
Eva Yeung of Crimson Cross Hong Kong, who has been working with about 650 households in subdivided items, warned that the aged residing in such items are particularly weak.
“Local weather change impacts everybody,” Yeung stated. “However the affect shouldn’t be equal as a result of some folks, on account of their residing circumstances and bodily circumstances, are affected greater than others.”
Poor residing circumstances
The variety of subdivided items grew quickly over the previous 20 years as the worth of Hong Kong’s personal residential market tripled and public housing development did not sustain with demand.
Town is persistently ranked as probably the most costly housing markets on this planet, making low-cost options for folks like Chun more durable to seek out and blowing out ready lists for public housing.
Hong Kong’s 2021 census discovered that, out of a inhabitants of seven.5 million, 215,700 folks stay in such “shoe-box” areas — virtually one in 50 folks.
The aged are the fastest-growing group amongst them, with a rise of greater than 4,300 folks from 2016. That displays a United Nations forecast that Hong Kong will turn out to be the town with the world’s oldest inhabitants by 2050.
Yeung tries to enhance the residing circumstances of the households she works with by displaying them easy methods to improve air circulation or handle the temperature.
This photograph taken on August 10, 2024 exhibits a normal view of the condominium block the place retired janitor Chun Loi, 84, lives in her 50-square-foot windowless one-room flat in Hong Kong. Agence France-Presse
She stated indexes that measure elements reminiscent of temperature, humidity and air high quality have been all beneath worldwide requirements.
“It means their well being has been significantly affected… apart from bodily impacts, such residing environments would additionally have an effect on feelings,” she stated.
A 2020 examine by the Chinese language College of Hong Kong discovered that 5 consecutive “sizzling nights” — outlined as when temperatures rise above 28C (82F) — would increase the danger of loss of life by 6.66 p.c.
A authorities process pressure that tackles this housing challenge is predicted to this month announce minimal residing requirements and measures to eradicate substandard items.
‘Local weather catastrophe’ –
Lam Chiu-ying, the previous chief of Hong Kong’s climate observatory and a Crimson Cross council member, rooted round Chun’s unit searching for any spare room.
He lastly noticed an empty cabinet above the doorway that might maintain one other fan.
Lam, an ardent environmentalist who famously stated he would by no means use an air conditioner, had been visiting households to supply recommendation.
“Local weather change is regularly morphing into local weather catastrophe,” he instructed AFP.
“However we will’t merely surrender… what I’m doing is making an attempt my greatest earlier than the loss of life of the human race, hoping that folks would get up and possibly then, hastily, we could have hope.”