Campaigners from the Housing Movement yesterday urged the government to reform its policies to ensure affordable housing for young people.
The movement was launched on Aug. 26, 1989, when nearly 50,000 people staged a mass “sleep out” on the streets of Taipei to protest soaring home prices, movement spokesman and chairman of the Social Housing Advocacy Consortium Peng Yang-kae (彭揚凱) told a news conference in Taipei.
At the time, the city’s housing price to income ratio was 8.58 — meaning the average home price was 8.58 times the average annual wage — but today it has reached 14, he said.
Photo: CNA
“In the past three decades, housing prices have only become more unaffordable and young people have been struggling to find a decent home,” he said.
While President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration aims to build 200,000 social housing units by 2024, the project would increase the percentage of social housing to only 2 percent of homes nationwide, he said.
Home prices remain high while nearly 1 million units nationwide remain vacant, he said.
“The government must significantly reform its housing policies. That includes policies on the real-estate market as well as the rental market,” Peng said.
The matter must be treated as a national security issue, as the lack of affordable housing would have a negative impact on the birthrate and the workforce, he said.
Buying an apartment is especially difficult for younger people due to their low wages, Taiwan Labor Front secretary-general Son Yu-liam (孫友聯) said.
In the past two decades, wages for people aged 25 to 29 have grown by 15 percent, but housing prices increased 240 percent in Taipei and 178 percent nationwide, he said.
The lack of affordable options means that tenants sometimes have to settle for unsafe, low-quality homes, Tamkang University student Hsieh Yi-hung (謝毅弘) said.
About half of the nation’s university students cannot find a dorm room and have to explore other options, he said.
At his university, many students live in illegal add-on structures on rooftops, Hsieh said.
“In the past five years, there would be a fire in someone’s rental almost once a year,” he added.
The campaigners plan to invite representatives from the nation’s major political parties to forums it would hold to discuss policies on the real-estate and rental market, youth poverty and student housing, Peng said.
As the presidential and legislative elections approach, all major political parties should explain their stance on the issue and propose solutions, he added.
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