The Social Housing Promotion Alliance used a skit about sky-high housing prices, performed outside one of Taipei’s luxury apartment complexes yesterday, to announce it would join with labor groups in the annual May Day parade.
On the sidewalk in front of The Palace (帝寶), several alliance members pushed a wooden model of a snail with a placard advertising real estate priced at more than NT$10 million (US$345,000) toward The Palace, only to be stopped by a big net festooned with signs reading “no social housing,” “unfair taxing scheme” and “no housing law.”
The snail represented people who cannot afford to buy their own homes, since they are nicknamed “snails without a shell,” while the ad on the back of the snail symbolized the burden the “snails” have to carry to have a place of their own, the event organizers said.
Photo: Huang Hsuan-pi, Taipei Times
The net, they said, represented the social system — or the lack of social mechanism — that blocks many people from owning their own home.
“We will join workers in their May Day parade this year, because we support their call for the government to end poverty in this country,” alliance spokesman Lu Ping-yi (呂秉怡) said. “We will also demand the government create a fair and just housing environment.”
Lu said the alliance has nothing against people who can afford to purchase an apartment in The Palace — at an average price of about NT$2 million per ping (坪, approximately 3.3m2) — but the complex is so symbolic of Taipei’s high real estate prices that it provided the perfect backdrop for its skit.
“The existence of luxury housing complexes such as The Palace compared when so many people cannot afford to own even a small place shows that this is a very serious issue,” Lu said. “The government should help to bridge the gap through fairer tax reforms, social housing projects and reallocating social resources.”
Taiwan Labor Front executive director Yang Shu-wei (楊書瑋) welcomed the alliance’s participation in the parade.
“We would like to invite everyone to take part in the parade. We want to remind government officials that the people are their bosses — not just big corporations and the wealthy,” Yang said.
The May 1 parade will depart at 1:30pm from Exit No. 5 of Taipei’s San Yat-sen Memorial Hall MRT station.
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