Opinion | Hong Kong people’s lives in misery are a crisis. It’s time to treat it as such

Compartmentalized apartments and cage houses are Hong Kong’s disgrace. With our financial discipline, land sales premiums, tax revenues and solid investments, the government has built up significant tax reserves and invested in expensive infrastructure over the years.

However, given all this spending, we somehow failed to eliminate about 110,000 subdivided units to help our needs the unhappiest citizens. It is not due to a lack of resources or means, but rather a matter of choice.

For far too long we have turned our eyes away from the deep-rooted problems of society and relegated the suffering and hardships of the poor to the rarely visited dark corners of the city. We believed in the myth: “If you work long and hard, you will succeed.” Own your own house“.

The poor were blamed not working hard enoughalthough this ignores the lack of opportunities and other hurdles faced by those born into disadvantaged backgrounds. It also ignores the structural housing problems that have arisen generation after generation, making it difficult to point the finger at any particular administration, department, developer or individual.

The current government could provide some light at the end of the tunnel. Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu has made good on his promise his political address last year by forming a task force to address the issue of divided units.