For the nation’s homeless, life is not only about finding a place to stay or ways to sustain themselves, it’s also often about being dispersed and having their belongings taken away by the government.
“How am I supposed to sleep on a cold day like today after you [the government] take away my clothes and blankets? I sleep in the park, at the train station and on sidewalks with a covering because I don’t have anywhere else to stay,” a tearful homeless woman named A-chun (阿春) told a press conference at the legislature yesterday.
“I’m suffering every day, but you only know how to drive me away,” she said.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
A-chun is one of the homeless people who make Taipei Railway Station their home.
The Homeless of Taiwan organization held the press conference to release the results of a survey of 140 homeless people living in or near the railway station.
Aside from worrying about finding ways to sustain herself, A-chun often fears being driven away by police or having her belongings cleared away once she leaves her “home.”
“I want to work to support myself, but how can I take all my belongings — clothes, blankets and sleeping bags — to work?” A-chun said. “I usually hide them somewhere, only to find that my stuff had been taken away by the cleaning squad.”
Contrary to the impression that the homeless do not want to work and often beg for money, 90 percent of those surveyed had jobs before becoming homeless, and more than 70 percent of them are currently employed, though mostly in low-paying temporary jobs, such as construction work, holding advertising placards or custodial work, the survey showed.
Close to 90 percent of the 140 homeless surveyed said their No. 1 concern was not finding a job, while 80 percent said they were also worried about their belongings being taken away.
“The government should help the homeless or at least not treat us like rats to be gotten rid of,” said Zhuiying (追影), a 65-year-old homeless person who also lives around the railway station. “We sleep in public places and try to find a job because we don’t want to break the law.”
Some homeless people who cannot stand their condition anymore sometimes commit minor crimes just to be put in jail so they can receive shelter and food, he said.
Cracking down hard on homeless people will only turn more into criminals, Zhuiying said.
Before he became homeless four years ago, Zhuiying owned a teahouse in Sanchong District (三重), New Taipei City (新北市), and had a house in Taipei’s Shilin District (士林).
About six years ago, a family friend persuaded his parents to sell their house and invest a large amount of money.
“I was busy taking care of my business and didn’t pay attention to it at first. When I sensed something was fishy, it was already too late,” Zhuiying said. “The man took just about everything my family owned and ran away.”
Soon after, Zhuiying’s parents passed away.
Zhuiying worked as a security guard for some time before becoming homeless.
Homeless people also often face exploitation at the hands of their employers, he said.
“I worked at a construction site where I was told I could make NT$1,000 per day, but at the end of the day, I only got NT$700,” he said. “I asked why and was told: ‘If you don’t want the job, then don’t come to work.’”
Chunghwa Telecom Union vice president Hung Chun-lung (洪春龍) said that if the government did not improve hiring conditions for subcontractors or temporary workers, more workers would risk becoming homeless.
Many companies hire temporary workers to replace full-time -employees as a way to save money.
“The government claims the economy has improved, but official statistics also show that more than 3.6 million households have a monthly income of less than NT$30,000,” Homeless in Taiwan member Kuo Ying-ching told the press conference. “This is an issue that the government should seriously look into, instead of trying to cover it up.”
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not