NGO warns of extreme heat in subdivided flats, rooftop homes as Hong Kong logs hottest day of year
Hong Kong Free Press
An NGO has warned of extreme heat in Hong Kong’s subdivided flats and rooftop homes, which house more than 220,000 residents, as the city logged the hottest day in the year so far on Sunday, when the mercury soared to 34.8 degrees Celsius.
Anti-poverty NGO the Society for Community Organisation (SoCO) said on Sunday that it had surveyed 308 people living in “inadequate housing” such as subdivided flats, rooftop and cage homes from June 14 to Saturday. Over 90 per cent said they had felt ill because their apartments were too hot.
Over the past two weeks, the Hong Kong Observatory had issued a very hot weather warning on 13 days, increasing the need for water and electricity usage to keep cool and placing an extra financial burden on the underprivileged, the NGO said.
The very hot weather warning was also in force on Monday, when the temperature measured 34 degrees Celsius at 4 pm.
The NGO also measured the temperatures of 14 rooftop and cage homes between last Monday and Saturday, recording heats between 30 and 41 degree Celsius.
In a tin-sheeted house in Kwun Tong, the temperature on Saturday was 7 degrees higher than the 34 degree Celsius recorded by the Observatory.
“The impact of global warming is pressing, hot days and nights will continue to rise in Hong Kong,” the NGO said in a statement in Chinese, saying that the government should do more to help low-income residents address extreme weather.
Public housing
Sze Lai-shan, the deputy director of SoCO, said in a radio program on Monday that residents living in such conditions had avoided being at home and instead gone to air-conditioned shopping malls or public libraries to escape the heat.
Many had fell ill, could not sleep, and consumed more water under the heat, causing extra expenses, Sze told government-funded broadcaster RTHK in Cantonese. The weather had also attracted pests into the house, which often had poor hygiene, she added.
The veteran social worker said the respondents had wished for a swifter allocation of public housing or light public housing, as well as subsidies for electricity and water bills.
Last month, the government opened applications to light public housing, an initiative offering around 30,000 units in a bid to address the city’s housing crisis. As of the end of March, the average waiting time for public rental housing in Hong Kong was 5.7 years.
Over-charging
Sze also highlighted the city’s energy tariffs, which charge households on a progressive scale based on the total amount of electricity and water used. The higher the consumption, the higher the expense.
She said residents living in subdivided flats often shared one meter for electricity and water, meaning they were likely to pay more than if they were living in a single flat.
That also left space for unscrupulous landlords to take advantage of tenants in subdivided flats and charge them higher individual fees, as the monthly meter readings were kept from their knowledge, Sze said.
She said the government should make independent meters mandatory and step up inspections against landlords over-charging their tenants.
The Observatory said last week that June ended with nine consecutive very hot days from 20 to 28, noting that it was “one of the longest [periods] on record” for the month.
It added that the first six months of the year had been “abnormally warm.”
Charity the Senior Citizen Home Safety Association said last month it had seen “a significant increase in the number of help requests from the elderly and recorded a surge of over 20 per cent in the number of elderly individuals being sent to hospitals” during the recent heatwave, when temperatures generally reached at least 33 degrees.
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