Department of Urban Development, Taipei City Government

“Government-controlled Rent and Management plan for Empty Residential Houses,” effective for a month now, has already assisted a lower income single parent with two children to successfully rent a house. She looked for platforms such as Tsuei Ma-Ma Foundation for Housing and Community Services and Yong-Sheng Group to seek assistance with housing as her prior landlord raised the rent from $20,000 to $26,000. During this process, the tenants are assisted with searching refundable down payment and deposit installment payment as well as finding repair professionals. This allows disadvantaged tenants to pay lower rent to stay in newly renovated housing. During the two-year lease, landlords receive the benefits of having professional managed services, and they do not have to worry about monthly rental fee. The tenants, on the other hand, would be provided with regular care visits and assisted with relevant social welfare resources from Tsuei Ma-Ma Foundation.
Ben Tai-Ming, the commissioner of the Department of Urban Development said that Taipei City Government has taken several positive measures such as “Smooth Rental Plan – More Pregnancy” (until 2013, 6543 households have been subsidized), and providing low-income households with rent subsidies (until 2013, 1316 households have been subsidized). Taipei City Government also turns to Ministry of the Interior to fight for the “Taipei City Rent Service Platform Plan,” subsidizing $10,930,000 to set up three renting service platforms starting last September. Online services include housing information match making, rental information consulting, rental subsidies consulting, advisory and mediating disputes, and renting relocation consulting.
Rental service platform plan has its limits, resulting in only three successful match-making since the measures hit the road. According to the platform operators, in addition to considering increasing taxes, landlords are reluctant to rent idle housing units to the disadvantaged residents because of problems derived from renting disputes or troublesome renting processes.
City Hall believes that in order to increase the willingness of landlords to rent housing to disadvantaged families, government needs to act not only as an intermediate matchmaking platform but also needs to take on more positive initiatives to solve the worries. As a result, in April 2014, “Government-controlled Rent and Management plan for Empty Residential House” commissioned by professional firms, initiated rental fee of 16,400NTD or lower for disadvantaged tenants. Agency fees, notary fees and related administrative expenses are taken care of by the government subsidy. Professionals firms provide several services to the landlords for two years, including rent escrow services, rent collection, housing repairs, funding allocation, rent dispute resolution, and other systems in place.
On the other hand, the government will help disadvantaged tenants (middle or low-income families) to search for adequate housing and match with the right contract. It will serve as an agent between the landlords and the tenants, assisting those who need help with applying for social welfare resources. Given the situation, it will also aid with disbursement deposit, emergency, moving, and dispute resolution assistance.