The housing system in Taiwan has three defining characteristics. First, it has been fully commercialized. Public housing originally fulfilled a social function, but almost every unit has since been sold off and privatized. As a result, public housing policy has been likened to a lottery. Second, the system ignores disadvantaged groups, social justice and low-income housing: rented housing accounts for only 0.08 percent of public housing. Third, the system encourages speculation, the biggest problems being an unreasonable tax system and a lack of property transaction transparency.
Pushed by the social housing movement, the government is now finally introducing a few new policies, but a close look at what is planned is discouraging.
Social housing is planned at five sites. Three projects in New Taipei City will be build, operate and transfer (BOT) projects, mainly targeting people between 20 and 40 years old. No decision has yet been made about the remaining two projects, but the city is turning a temporary housing project into public rental accommodation in Dalongdong (大龍峒) for people between 20 and 40 years old, with an annual income of less than NT$1.58 million.
Bidding for the government’s affordable housing project is finished and “lottery-style” public housing will be built next to the A7 station on the future airport MRT line. However, the Housing Act (住宅法) passed late last year does not define “social housing.” It states only that 10 percent of new social housing must be reserved for disadvantaged groups. The government shirks all responsibility for the project, which will be a BOT project favoring construction companies. Housing prices will be announced on a district-by-district basis so pricing is neither transparent nor based on real market prices.
The government’s housing policy shows no real determination to resolve the problem. If it was sincere the government would take a long hard look at those at the bottom of the housing system. Home ownership and vacancy rates are high across the nation, but only about 30 percent of low-income households own their homes.
These policies do not target the people most in need of housing resource redistribution, nor do they try to understand their living environment and needs. Ultimately talk about housing justice or fair living standards is just hot air.
In recent years, neighboring countries have increased their share of social housing. From 2000 to 2010, South Korea increased the proportion of social housing from 2.5 percent to 6.3 percent of total housing stock, building an average of 240,000 units every four years.
Although Hong Kong suffers from serious social inequalities, the percentage of public housing remains at about 30 percent, and this is likely to increase as a result of strong social demand.
Providing stable housing to low-income households means caring for the next generation. According to data from the Ministry of the Interior, at least 120,000 children and teenagers live in low-income households. Given the declining birthrate, these “masters of the future” are a precious social asset because the task of supporting an ageing society will ultimately fall to them.
Perhaps we can get by without building affordable housing, but we cannot stop building social housing. Most importantly, before such construction projects begin, we must listen to disadvantaged groups.
For the sake of Taiwan’s future, let’s build some real social housing.
Chen Yi-ling is an assistant professor in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Studies, National Dong Hwa University.
Translated by Eddy Chang
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
The military is conducting its annual Han Kuang exercises in phases. The minister of national defense recently said that this year’s scenarios would simulate defending the nation against possible actions the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might take in an invasion of Taiwan, making the threat of a speculated Chinese invasion in 2027 a heated agenda item again. That year, also referred to as the “Davidson window,” is named after then-US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Philip Davidson, who in 2021 warned that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the PLA to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Xi in 2017