The government is promoting a social housing policy to meet the housing needs of young people and the disadvantaged, which will not only help achieve housing justice but also build a sound residential home market. The end of 2024 will see the fulfillment of an eight-year (2017-2024) policy objective to increase the supply of social housing by 200,000 units (including 120,000 newly constructed homes and 80,000 units subleased from private owners or managed on their behalf). Further, the introduction of a subleasing and management scheme has created a balancing mechanism between the home rental and purchase markets.
Moving forward, the government has set a new social housing objective benefiting 1 million households (including 250,000 newly constructed social housing units, 250,000 subleased or managed units, and 500,000 rent-subsidized homes) over the eight-year period from 2025 to 2032, which will continue to stabilize supply and demand and further protect the public's right to housing.
Concrete actions
■ The Housing Act has been amended to provide a legal basis for promoting the social housing policy. In accordance with the act, the central government also assists local governments with land acquisition, financing, taxation issues and the formation of implementation teams.
■ State-owned land or buildings not designed for public use may now be leased on a long-term basis or utilized without remuneration. Land owned by the Ministry of National Defense may also be used for social housing purposes. These measures have created more avenues for local governments to acquire land and resources.
■ To alleviate the financial burden on local governments, a social housing financing service platform has been created as a means of providing local governments with low-interest, long-term loans for social housing projects.
■ The subleasing and management services system offers below-market rent rates for lower-income households, disadvantaged groups, and workers and students in need of housing, and encourages landlords to join the system by offering concessions on house tax, land value tax and income tax, thus expanding housing access. The government is also promoting an NT$30 billion (US$961.4 million) expanded rent subsidy program (2022-2025) to comprehensively ease the burden of rentals for young singles, newlyweds, childrearing households, and socially or economically disadvantaged households. In June 2023, the government also launched a program to provide personal housing loan support for households of middle-class incomes and below that were impacted by the pandemic; the program accepted applications until December 29, 2023.
■ The National Housing and Urban Regeneration Center has been established to help the central government apply business principles to running social housing projects.
■ To build quality residences that people can appreciate, social housing units incorporate green and smart technologies, seismic-code standards, and accessibility features for people with disabilities. The homes are also linked to community child care and long-term care facilities.