Hundreds of residents yesterday gathered at a forum in downtown Taipei, where housing prices are the highest in the nation, to demand housing justice.
The forum, held by the Housing Right Reform Union, took place at a plaza near the intersection of Zhongxiao E Road and Dunhua S Road, where the Snails Without Shells movement was launched 30 years ago.
The forum called on the government to implement a “List Real Price 2.0” policy, levy taxes on people who hoard properties and step up efforts to build social housing.
Photo: Yang Hsin-hui, Taipei Times
Participants chanted slogans, vowing to realize housing justice by beating plutocracy.
Organization of Urban Re-s secretary-general Peng Yang-kae (彭揚凱) said that finding housing is difficult for young Taiwanese, due to homeowners and construction companies driving up property prices, an unregulated rental market and an underdeveloped “social housing security net.”
From 2003 to 2013, the government believed that high housing prices could drive economic growth, which would in turn boost people’s income and make them more likely to purchase homes, but the theory has been proven wrong, as steep prices did not bring the economic benefits that the government had expected, Peng said.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) during her campaign for the 2016 presidential election asked the right questions with her housing platform, which promised to make housing information transparent, push housing tax reforms and build social housing, but the problems have not been solved, Peng said.
He urged people to pay close attention to politicians and who among them portray themselves as in favor of more reasonable housing prices, but have actually blocked efforts to achieve that goal.
Huang Li-ling (黃麗玲), an associate professor at National Taiwan University’s Graduate Institute of Building and Planning, said that people who benefit from high housing prices say that prices increase due to high demand, but in reality, a large number of unused homes remain unsold.
With the nation’s social housing coverage falling far behind that of advanced nations, such as the Netherlands, France and South Korea, and being even lower than the coverage in Myanmar, Vietnam and Indonesia, she said that people should follow the example of environmental advocate Greta Thunberg at a UN summit on climate change in September and ask the Taiwanese politicians: “How dare you?”
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator William Tseng (曾銘宗) told the forum that the party supports “List Real Price 2.0.”
However, union cofounder and New Power Party Legislator Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) said that only two KMT legislators voted in favor of the policy during the previous legislative session, while the other 33 were absent.
Some lawmakers from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party did not vote for the policy, which was sponsored by the Executive Yuan, he said.
When similar proposals emerged in 2011, they were struck down at the Legislative Yuan, he said, adding that then-KMT legislator Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇) had attributed the outcome to pushback from construction companies, which would not accept being required to register the real-time prices of pre-sold homes.
He asked participants to review the housing policies proposed by politicians during their election campaigns in 2014, 2016 and last year to find out whether they have delivered on their promises.
Former Taipei Department of Urban Development commissioner and union cofounder Lin Jou-min (林洲民) said that he hopes the government would act on the event’s three appeals to spare participants from having to gather again at the same location in 30 years.
Three cases of Candida auris, a fungus that can cause a yeast infection known as candidiasis in humans, have been reported in Taiwan over the past few years, but they did not display drug resistance, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said yesterday. Lo made the statement at a news conference in Taipei, one day after the Washington Post reported that the potentially deadly fungus is spreading in US hospitals. The fungus was first discovered in Japan in 2009 and poses a danger to immunocompromised people, with an estimated mortality rate of 30 to 60 percent, Lo
‘DIRE’: Taiwan would not engage in ‘dollar diplomacy,’ the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, after China reportedly offered Honduras up to US$3 billion to establish relations The government yesterday recalled its ambassador to Honduras after the Central American nation sent its foreign minister to China, signaling that it would sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Suspicions concerning ties with Honduras are rife after Honduran President Xiomara Castro on Tuesday last week wrote on Twitter that her country would pursue diplomatic ties with China. Honduran Minister of Foreign Affairs Eduardo Enrique Reina traveled to China on Wednesday “to promote efforts for the establishment of diplomatic relations” on instructions from Castro, Reuters yesterday quoted Honduran presidential spokesman Ivis Alvarado as saying. The government “has decided to immediately recall the ambassador to Honduras
SWITCH TO BEIJING: The government severed diplomatic relations about an hour after Honduras announced the move, saying that no semi-official ties would be maintained Taiwan severed diplomatic ties with Honduras and ended all cooperation with the Central American country, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday, about an hour and a half after the Honduran Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on Twitter at 8am Taiwan time that the nation would cut its ties with Taiwan. Honduran President Xiomara Castro on Wednesday sent Honduran Minister of Foreign Affairs Eduardo Enrique Reina to Beijing to negotiate the establishment of diplomatic relations. She announced the plan on March 14 on Twitter. “To safeguard Taiwan’s sovereignty and dignity, Taiwan is terminating diplomatic ties with Honduras with immediate effect” after communication with
MEDIA, SOCIETY FOCUS: Doublethink Lab said that Beijing is trying to coerce countries that rely on China economically to pursue policies in its favor China has stronger influence over Taiwan’s media and society than any other country, the Taipei-based Doublethink Lab think tank said yesterday, as it announced its China Index gauging Beijing’s global influence. Taiwan ranked 11th overall among 82 countries assessed, but first in terms of social and media influence, Doublethink Lab chairman Puma Shen (沈伯洋) told a news conference in Taipei. More than 200 experts and academics participated in the project, including some highly influential figures, Shen said. The index collects information from countries worldwide to gauge China’s influence and assess how Chinese policies affect them, Shen said. In terms of Chinese
RSS