Doomed to fail? Hong Kong’s attempt to tackle ‘shoebox housing’ runs into trouble
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Authorities are seeking to fix the city’s problem of tiny, overcrowded housing but critics say the new regulations fail to capture the worst offenders. Lai Shan Zse moves quickly, bounding up the grungy, dimly lit stairwell of the unit block in Hong Kong’s Mong Kok district. The social worker knocks on a door and announces her arrival, moves into a tiny entranceway and past the tiled kitchenette from where an elderly lady waves, and into a skinny hall lined with what look like plywood cupboards. They are in fact individual units, Hong Kong’s infamous “coffin homes”, housing dozens of tenants in spaces not much larger than a single bed, stacked two high to the ceiling.
![[Helen Davidson]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/uploads/2019/04/04/Helen_Davidson.png?width=75&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Sze, the deputy director of civil rights group the Society for Community Organization (Soco), taps on a couple of the doors, a pile of paper topped with a hastily sketched map of residents scrunched in her other hand. A few faces emerge, and she hands out information sheets, and checks the names of residents she hadn’t previously registered.
![[Social worker Lai Shan Sze visits a room of cage homes in Hong Kong]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/4740a284516718db6b613de66046f89b77d5571c/0_0_5386_3590/master/5386.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
“This is the first time I’ve lived in a home like this,” says one woman from a top floor coffin home. She used to live in Shenzhen, in mainland China, but after moving to Hong Kong she and her husband separated. “My family, relatives and friends will be embarrassed if they see me like this,” she says, asking not to be named or photographed. “I’m just introducing you to the living conditions here in Hong Kong, including for foreign workers like me.”.
![[A room of cage homes in Hong Kong. The government has pledged to raise minimum standards of subdivided units, but critics say it doesn’t address the worst of the city’s low income housing, like cage homes.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/efc9d8474e78684aae748b00cdfc23ac0d8c8c85/0_0_5616_3744/master/5616.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Hong Kong is famous for its cramped and tiny apartments, or “shoebox housing”, a name that somehow still doesn’t fully convey the claustrophobic nature of the spaces. New reforms announced this year attempt to tackle the problem by mandating major improvements and regulations to be in place by the end of 2026.
![[Inside a subdivided unit in Mong Kok.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/83514439138cd05749abe1a9938872438b45ebf4/0_0_4032_3024/master/4032.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
