Taken from the National newspaper..
ABU DHABI // A summer campaign is being launched to dismantle a hidden city on the rooftops of the capital. But many of the people living in the cheap rooms are saying that they have nowhere else to go.
It is not good news for the people who live on the rooftops. ND Kawsar’s makeshift dwelling, which he shares with 20 other bachelors, is no penthouse.
Broken satellite dishes, sacks of rubbish and laundry lines roast under the sun outside his door. Inside, exposed wires droop from his ceiling. There are no fire-safety devices, nor is there any means of escape other than a stairwell wide enough for a single-file exit.
“No safety. The level of danger is high. We cannot take a fire,” said Mr Kawsar, 27, a typist.
“But where can we go? Abu Dhabi is expensive. The good flats are only for families.”
Mr Kawsar, who lives in Hadbat al Zafranah, blamed the shortage of affordable housing in the city as the real issue forcing residents such as himself to cheap and unlicensed rooftop flats.
“We are working in small shops, restaurants, some for construction companies,” he said. “It’s so difficult for us. If the baladiyah (municipality) close the room, where [do] I go? Sleep in the road?”
On a salary under Dh2,000 (US$545) per month, his Dh450-a-month accommodation above the weathered three-storey building overlooking Al Saada Street is all he can afford. The landlord plans to raise his rent by Dh50 next month, he added.
“If we are taking a new building, we are paying maybe more than Dh1,000. How we will pay?” he asked. “If the baladiyah want to close, first they have to increase our salary. Money is the problem.”
nfestation and fires are major concerns. Helicopters had to airlift a young girl and two adults to safety in August 2008 after a fire broke out in a rooftop shanty atop a 16-storey apartment block on Airport Road.
It's sad that this place is so rich, yet so many people are so poor....
No comments:
Post a Comment