{"id":68719,"date":"2025-01-03T10:00:40","date_gmt":"2025-01-03T01:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/jan\/03\/doomed-to-fail-hong-kongs-attempt-to-tackle-shoebox-housing-runs-into-trouble"},"modified":"2025-01-03T10:00:40","modified_gmt":"2025-01-03T01:00:40","slug":"doomed-to-fail-hong-kongs-attempt-to-tackle-shoebox-housing-runs-into-trouble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=68719","title":{"rendered":"Doomed to fail? Hong Kong\u2019s attempt to tackle \u2018shoebox housing\u2019 runs into trouble"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Authorities are seeking to fix the city\u2019s problem of tiny, overcrowded housing  but critics say the new regulations fail to capture the worst offenders<\/p>\n<p>Lai Shan Zse moves quickly, bounding up the grungy, dimly lit stairwell of the unit block in Hong Kong\u2019s 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, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2017\/aug\/29\/hong-kong-coffin-homes-horror-my-week\">Hong Kong\u2019s infamous \u201ccoffin homes<\/a>\u201d, housing dozens of tenants in spaces not much larger than a single bed, stacked two high to the ceiling.<\/p>\n<p>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\u2019t previously registered.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/jan\/03\/doomed-to-fail-hong-kongs-attempt-to-tackle-shoebox-housing-runs-into-trouble\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Authorities are seeking to fix the city\u2019s problem of tiny, overcrowded housing  but critics say the new regulations fail to capture the worst offendersLai Shan Zse moves quickly, bounding up the grungy, dimly lit stairwell of the unit block in Hong Kon&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1082,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,48,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-hong-kong","category-world-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1082"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=68719"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68719\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68720,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68719\/revisions\/68720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=68719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=68719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=68719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}