The shipping container village: Families forced to live in desperate conditions for TEN YEARS due to lack of houses
Worldwide, Daily news | ankakh | March 28, 2013 23:45
These are the Chinese migrant families who are forced to live in old shipping containers due to a lack of housing.
For just £50 a month, they rent out their metal homes on the outskirts of Shanghai.
Millions of rural migrants have flocked to China’s fast developing cities in recent decades, but many are unable to join the property ladder as house prices have boomed and rents have soared.
They also struggle for rights to health care and public education because of the government’s household-registration system ‘hukou’.
Li Yanxin, a native of Anhui Province, said she and three other migrant families have lived in the so-called ‘container village’ for the last 10 years.
The old cargo containers were reportedly rescued by a man in his 70s, known simply as the ‘old man’, who acts as landlord after he found them discarded on the side of a road.
All are equipped with doors, windows, electricity and water and Li said she feels safe.
She has divided her 15 square metre home into a small supermarket, selling food, drinks and other daily necessities, and a living room with a bed, sofa and even a television.
Another female resident living in the container said the ‘old man’ took pity on some migrant workers who survived by collecting garbage and charged them very low rent.
‘Many people ask me how I feel living in a container. I say it’s quite fine as I’ve never lived in an apartment in the city,’ said Li.
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