The Ministry of the Interior said that it has intervened to help the family of a girl who asked Ronald McDonald for help because her family has no place to live.
A 10-year-old girl surnamed Chen (陳) who lives with her parents and mentally challenged sister in Wufeng Township (霧峰), Taichung County, wrote an e-mail to the Ronald McDonald House this week asking for help. She said the owner of the house her family had been squatting in wanted them out.
Chen’s father has been unable to work for several months because of hand injuries. The family is now dependent upon the few hundred NT dollars a month that Chen’s mother makes from recycling. Unable to pay their rent, they had to move and took up residence in a derelict house that had been partially damaged by the 921 Earthquake.
The house has no utilities, so the girls do their homework by candlelight and the family gets water from neighbors for cooking and washing. The girls use tents as their “rooms.”
Last week the police told the family that the owner of the house wanted them out, or else they would face trespassing charges.
Chen remembered “Uncle McDonald” — the statues of Ronald McDonald found outside many McDonald’s restaurants — who seemed to be a very kind person.
“Dear Uncle McDonald, we don’t have money to pay the rent, so my father found an abandoned house with no water or electricity,” she wrote in her e-mail. “But the police say it’s trespassing and want us to move out within a week — we don’t have any money and I don’t know what to do.”
The e-mail brought help — not only from the Ronald McDonald House Charities, but from the Children’s Welfare League Foundation and the interior ministry after the media reported it on Wednesday.
“The interior ministry has asked the Taichung County Department of Social Affairs to handle the case, and has issued an emergency payment of NT$20,000, along with another payment of NT$20,000 from the ‘Care Right Now’ program to the family,” the ministry said in a press release. “Meanwhile, employment service and subsidies for National Health Insurance fees will also be provided to the family.”
“The family has been listed as a high-risk family and the case will be followed,” the statement said.
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