Council to build shared affordable housing due to welfare reform

Inside Housing wrote:The first Welsh authority to experience full roll-out of Universal Credit is planning to build more shared accommodation, as it believes many tenants will be unlikely to afford individual homes.

Benny Lam wrote:Cage homes are minuscule rooms lived in by the poorest people in the city. Over the last 10 years, the number of cage homes made of wire mesh has decreased, but they’ve been replaced by beds sealed with wooden planks

A 400 sq ft flat can be subdivided to accommodate nearly 20 double-decker sealed bed spaces

These small, wooden boxes of 15 sq ft, are known as ‘coffin cubicles’

The tenants are different ages and sexes – all unable to afford a small cubicle, which would allow more room to stand up

The photographs highlight the reality of Hong Kong’s housing crisis, where tens of thousands of people live in these cramped conditions because they can’t afford anything else

El-dudeareno wrote:This is scary stuff Mary-FV . Did it ever mention why it has got so bad in Hong Kong, or is it just greedy landlords? You could see the same thing  happening in large city’s here like London, where rents have gotten out of control for many people and commuting isn’t an option.

PHILIPPA STOCKLEY wrote:Pocket Living: the story so far
Pocket Living was founded 10 years ago by former investment banker Mark Vlessing and his partner Paul Harbard, former finance director at social housing provider the Peabody Trust. Since Londoners or couples earning £35,000 to £40,000 still could not afford to buy on the open market, Vlessing’s idea was to build a flat they could afford — a smaller but well-designed home in a block.

These flats are smaller than the existing minimum space standard for a one-bedroom new build, which is 50 square metres, or 550sq ft. This is Pocket Living in a nutshell. Stylish, carefully designed one-bedroom apartments of 38sq m (418sq ft), in blocks with outside space that’s often a roof terrace. There is no parking and the company does not offer social housing. The flats have big windows, under-floor heating, and suit singles or a tidy couple.