the 1950s for single working men from Mainland China. Cage homes are described as "wire mesh cages resembling rabbit hutches crammed into a dilapidated apartment." As of 2012, the number of impoverished residents in Hong Kong was estimated at 1.19 million, and cage homes, along with substandard housing such as cubicle apartments, were still serving a portion of this sector's housing needs. The combination of high rents and income inequality has been given as one reason that cage homes persist. Michael Adorjan, a University of Hong Kong criminology professor, has noted that "The United Nations has called cage and cubicle homes an 'insult to human dignity.'" Cage hotels in the United States Cage hotels, a form of single room occupancy, were common in Chicago at the turn of the 20th century; an estimated 40,000 to 60,000 people lived in them during the winter. A 1958 survey by Christopher Jencks found that homeless men preferred cage hotels over shelters for reasons of privacy and security. A similar preference for cage hotels over shelters was reported in turn of the century New York City, where single working men ranked their housing preference in the following order: "Regulatory efforts to combat low-cost 'cage hotels,' ... [has been] a driver of the expansion of the homeless population in US cities", according to Jencks. By 2021, only one, the Ewing Annex Hotel, remained in Chicago, housing some 200 men, many of whom would otherwise be homeless. See also Capsule hotel Common lodging-house Hostel Internet café Punk house Staying Alive References Further reading Homelessness Hotel types Urban decay