VOA慢速英语2014 住房成本提升促使香港居民在屋顶生活

 

AS IT IS 2014-07-24 Housing Costs Push Hong Kong Residents to the Rooftop 住房成本提升促使香港居民在屋顶生活

Rising housing prices in Hong Kong are hurting low-income residents.  Many people who live in the city are being forced into unsafe and illegal living conditions. 

Some Hong Kong residents have built low-cost dwellings¹ on the roofs --top levels -- of high buildings. They may pay rent --  make periodic payments  -- for these poor living spaces to owners they do not trust. The dwellings have poor protection against extreme heat and other dangerous weather. And the city government cannot meet the growing need for affordable² public rental³ housing. 

Su Xingyun makes her home in a rooftop living space.  She says she does not have the money to pay for better places.

"The rent is so high out there, how can we leave this place? It costs at least several hundred dollars. We cannot afford it.”

Her two daughters have to walk up and down 10 levels of steps on their way to school and back home. They often do their homework in very high heat or under a leaking roof. They share a single bed, a small living room and another area outside.  The open-air space serves as both a kitchen and a bathroom.

The roof offers little privacy because it shares the space with similar places.  The family of Su Xingyun has lived here for four years.  But now the government says they must leave. 

Su Xingyun moved here from mainland China to join her husband.  He has lived on the rooftop for 20 years. She said she has requested safer public housing every year.

"During typhoons I'm really afraid. I'm worried the roof will collapse⁴ because I can feel the walls shaking. It's not safe for a family.”

On a rooftop in the working-class Sham⁵ Shui Po neighborhood, some residents own their homes. Others pay rent to the landlord.

Quang Xuan is a Vietnamese refugee who has lived there for 10 years.  He pays about $130 a month.

“I will stay as long as they don’t demolish⁶ this place.  If they do, I will have to leave and I may have to sleep in the streets.”

A growing number of new, costly⁷ apartments are being built in Hong Kong.  Some of them sell for more than $50 million.  And as housing prices rise, the city is having difficulty finding room for its poorest people.

Community worker Angela Lui said many people cannot pay for even Hong Kong's cheapest places to live. 

"When you want to rent a subdivided⁸ unit in urban city, what you need is the deposit, the commission, the first month rent.  Altogether, it can be more than 10,000 HKD [$1,290]. It is a big number, a big amount of money that families under poverty [line] can't afford.”

No exact record of the number of poor rooftop homes exists. Officials said they removed 400,000 unlawful buildings - including rooftop dwellings - between 2001 and 2011.  Most were removed for safety reasons.  They are being torn down faster than the government can place people in homes they can afford. 

At the same time, the waiting list for public housing is getting longer.  At the end of March of this year, there were almost 250,000 requests for public rental housing.

The housing department said the average waiting period is three years.

1 dwellings   

n.住处，处所( dwelling的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The development will consist of 66 dwellings and a number of offices. 新建楼区将由66栋住房和一些办公用房组成。
• The hovels which passed for dwellings are being pulled down. 过去用作住室的陋屋正在被拆除。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 affordable   

adj.支付得起的，不太昂贵的

参考例句：

• The rent for the four-roomed house is affordable.四居室房屋的房租付得起。
• There are few affordable apartments in big cities.在大城市中没有几所公寓是便宜的。

3 rental   

n.租赁，出租，出租业

参考例句：

• The yearly rental of her house is 2400 yuan.她这房子年租金是2400元。
• We can organise car rental from Chicago O'Hare Airport.我们可以安排提供从芝加哥奥黑尔机场出发的租车服务。

4 collapse   

vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷

参考例句：

• The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
• The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做了一次彻底的调查分析。

5 sham   

n./adj.假冒(的)，虚伪(的)

参考例句：

• They cunningly played the game of sham peace.他们狡滑地玩弄假和平的把戏。
• His love was a mere sham.他的爱情是虚假的。

6 demolish   

v.拆毁(建筑物等)，推翻(计划、制度等)

参考例句：

• They're going to demolish that old building.他们将拆毁那座旧建筑物。
• He was helping to demolish an underground garage when part of the roof collapsed.他当时正在帮忙拆除一个地下汽车库，屋顶的一部份突然倒塌。

7 costly   

adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的

参考例句：

• It must be very costly to keep up a house like this.维修这么一幢房子一定很昂贵。
• This dictionary is very useful,only it is a bit costly.这本词典很有用，左不过贵了些。

8 subdivided   

再分，细分( subdivide的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The compound was subdivided into four living areas. 那个区域被划分成4个居住小区。
• This part of geologic calendar has not been satisfactorily subdivided. 这部分地质年代表还没有令人满意地再细分出来。