Many low-income people in the capital are choosing shared accommodation to lower their cost of living for adjusting to their earnings, which have drastically fallen due to the ongoing corona pandemic.
Many residents said they now prefer subletting their apartment rooms with shared accommodation seekers as it reduces housing cost.
Amid the coronavirus epidemic, numerous 'to-late' signs are being noticed hanging at the roadside, on light posts, walls and gates of houses in Dhaka city.
Such advertisements are noticed more in the areas where mostly middle-class people live -- Mohammadpur, Old Dhaka, Hazaribagh, Kolabagan, Sabujbagh, Mugda, Badda, Mirpur, Rampura and Banasree.
Many tenants in the areas where apartment rent is relatively high also prefer allowing shared accommodation.
According to Bharatia Parishad, a tenant rights body, more than 80 percent residents of Dhaka are living in rented homes. It is estimated that about 1.36 crore people in Dhaka city live in rented houses.
Talking to Bangladesh Post, Alok Hasan, sales manager of a retail company who lives in Kalabagan, said, “Before the corona crisis my landlord had raised the home rent. Due to coronavirus, my company has halved my salary. So, I prefer sharing rooms.”
Many average wage earners cannot afford paying for renting a complete house and so now prefer renting a much smaller and rooms sharing with others.
Meanwhile, the government has reopened everything, including offices, courts, businesses, mills and public transports, keeping in mind the livelihoods of the people.
Talking to Bangladesh Post, Mohammod Akbar Kabir of Department of Economics, at the University of Dhaka (DU), said, “Many organisations are still downsizing their staff members. In this situation, many officials and employees are leaving or subletting their big houses.”