LIFE IN A CAGE- (a true story!)

Livestock have better accomodations than those impoverished in Hong Kong. It's hard enough living with anyone, even your spouse. Imagine sharing a 600 square foot room with 19 strangers with individual cages stacked three deep. Each are 5 by 3 feet and the 19 men who live there can't hardly squeeze by them to get to the shared broken toilet. The room they are imprisoned in reeks of death and disease.

When I discovered today that there are at least 100,000 men (and some women) in Hong Kong living in cages due to poverty, I was all over it. Nothing screams humanitarian crisis/efforts and social collapse than at least 19 people living in a 600 square flat with caged in cubicles smaller than a single mattress!



A world away, behind dark stairways, gated doors, and deteriorated cardboard signs hanging near dark entrances exclaiming in Chinese "Don't Enter Without Permission" are the financially depraved living in wire cages. The cages aren't big enough for the men to stretch out in, or sit up completely in. The wire is mangled, broken and dangerous, slashing flesh or anything that gets near it. Wire cages which resemble an over-sized rabbit hutch, are apparently more comfortable and more desirable than the particle wood cages that trap the humid hot air inside, literally cooking the occupant. (See incredible pictures)

Most often, at any given time of the year, the temperature in the flat the 19+ men share is well over 95 degrees. The air-conditioning is typically broken and if it does work, it's not turned on until 9 pm at night; utilities such as electricity is fiercely controlled by the landlord who only charges these men $150 Euros (or HK$1,160) a month for rent. Do the math and the apartment owner is collecting roughly $2,500 a month (HK$19,375) from these people for one flat.

The 19 occupants share two toilets. A small rubber hose attached to a leaky faucet is what they use to wash themselves. Social workers who monitor the apartments said the electricity is donated, so a few of them have TVs. One person on the upper deck has an aquarium. The residents must battle poor hygiene, exposure to electrical wires, and once the rent is paid, most can't afford to eat three meals a day, they are lucky to have two.



There are cockroaches everywhere, lice, bed bugs, and fleas swarm the 600 square foot flat like a Biblical plague. The cages are stacked two or three deep, for a cube on the upper deck, it goes for $100 (HK$775), and for $150 you can score the lower bunk. The lower bunk offers a little more storage space as you can put things under the cage.



to see the rest of the article, go to http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/4516999-cage-men-of-hong-kong