More than 1 million households have applied for government rent subsidies this year, a record high since the scheme was launched in 2007, the National Land Management Agency said yesterday.
The expanded NT$30 billion (US$963.1 million) rent subsidy scheme, which opened for applications on Jan. 1, was initially designed to support about 500,000 households nationwide.
As of the end of last month, 1.02 million households applied for the subsidy, with the government approving more than 870,000 applications.
Photo: Hsu Yi-ping, Taipei Times
That means the average number of approved applications is about 87,000 households per month, a real-estate operator said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Combined with the applications that could be approved from this month to next month, more than 1 million application are expected to be approved this year, a milestone in the history of the subsidy program, they said.
About 9.4 million residential buildings are tax-registered nationwide, while 9.71 million households are registered, they said.
If 1 million applications are approved by the end of this year, the scheme would have subsidized more than 10 percent of families nationwide, the operator said.
Of the six special municipalities, Taichung has the highest number of household receiving the rent subsidy, at nearly 200,000 for nearly NT$5.5 billion in subsidies from January to last month, agency data showed.
The highest average monthly subsidy per household was in Taipei, at nearly NT$4,100, followed by New Taipei City and Taoyuan, both at about NT$3,300.
The average monthly subsidy per household in Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung was about NT$2,700, while it was about NT$2,400 in other administrative areas.
The scheme is part of the government’s policy to support families who do not own their homes, as well as single young adults, newlywed couples, families with underage children, and economically or socially disadvantaged individuals, amid high rents and housing prices in Taiwan, Colliers International Taiwan director Huang Shu-wei (黃舒衛) said.
The main aim of the scheme is to help young people pursue their careers, thereby enhancing social stability and population mobility, Huang said, adding that the program can also help the government address the nation’s falling birthrate.
The dual implementation of public housing and the rent subsidy schemes would lessen people’s housing burdens, enabling them to live in affordable rentals, housing researcher Ho Shih-chang (何世昌) said.
However, the ratio of tenants ineligible for rent subsidies to those whose applications were approved is about 4:6, meaning that there are up to 1.4 million households in rentals nationwide, much more than the initially estimated 1 million households, Ho said.
Starting from next year, the scheme would no longer provide subsidies to those living in illegal structures such as rooftop additions, unauthorized buildings or unregistered buildings, the Ministry of the Interior said.
Such buildings have higher rates of public safety incidents, such as fire, and also make up a relatively small proportion of all subsidy applications, it said.
The ministry would terminate rent subsidies for those living in illegal structures to encourage people to move to legal housing, it added.
About 7.6 percent to 7.8 percent of all residential buildings are illegal structures that have already been listed for management by the government, agency data showed.
The central government approved the Regulations for the Handling of Illegal Structures (違章建築處理辦法), which authorizes local governments to establish their own guidelines for tackling illegal constructions, the ministry said.
Given the obstacles to demolishing illegal structures, removing economic incentives such as rent subsidies for them is expected to curb their growth, it said.
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