Civic groups yesterday protested against the government’s housing policies, urging it to help the nation’s elderly people rent housing because they are often discriminated against.
“Many landlords are reluctant to rent their houses to elderly people, worrying that they may be involved in emergency situations more frequently. However, we must protest that even the government is very unfriendly toward older people when it comes to housing,” Federation for the Welfare of the Elderly secretary-general Wu Yu-chin (吳玉琴) told a press conference at the legislature. “In both Taipei and New Taipei City, the age requirement to qualify for a social housing unit is 20 to 45 years old, which excludes senior citizens.”
Even where there are a few senior housing estates in Taipei, the rent may not be affordable for many, Wu said.
Photo: Chou Si-yu, Taipei Times
“For example, the monthly rent for Zhulun Senior Apartments in Taipei is NT$18,000 [US$600], and if expenses for food are added, the monthly cost of living for a senior citizen can reach up to NT$22,000 a month,” Wu said. “That cost is already unaffordable for many working young people, never mind economically disadvantaged senior citizens who need to rent a senior apartment.”
Social Housing Advocacy Consortium vice president Lu Ping-yi (呂秉怡) agreed, saying that according to a survey by the Tsuei Ma Ma Foundation for Housing and Social Service, only 9 percent of property owners would rent their properties to senior citizens, and among them, only 1 percent would be willing to rent their properties to single senior citizens.
“This shows how difficult it is for elderly people to rent a house,” Lu said. “Most landlords said they would not be willing to rent properties to elderly people because they are worried that they may have some emergency, so the government could help by providing subsidies and routine visits by social workers to lessen the worries of landlords,” Lu said.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chen Chieh-ju (陳節如), who accompanied the groups in the press conference, urged the government to address the housing needs of senior citizens, as Taiwan is an aging society.
She also called on the government to relax qualifications for social housing and build more senior citizens’ apartments.
A 78-year-old man surnamed Sun (孫) who appeared at the press conference said he lives in a basement in Taipei which is humid and without sunlight.
“The environment is bad for my health, and I’ve been trying to find another house. However, I’ve not had any luck in half a year,” Sun said. “Many landlords just turn me down upon hearing my voice.”
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:
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
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
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater