Silent Poverty

Whenever people learn I'm from Singapore, they often ask: "Isn't it true that every citizen there can afford to own a home?" It seems everyone envies Singapore's housing policy. It's true — eighty percent of Singaporean citizens live in government HDB flats (public housing), and ninety-five percent of them own their own homes. Even though real estate prices are high, an average blue-collar family can still afford a two-room flat.

As a child, I lived with my nanny's family of five in a one-room HDB flat. From the tiny living room you could see straight into the bedroom — there was no partition, not even a door. My nanny and her husband slept on the bed, and we children slept on the floor. The kitchen was tiny too, and the bathroom was right behind it. The whole place was probably less than 33 square meters.

Poor Living Conditions

Even having grown up in an environment like that, arriving in Wanhua, Taipei and seeing the living conditions of underprivileged families here still shocked me. A-Wen and his son, in his thirties, share a basement room, sleeping in the same bed. The damp, dim, mildew-smelling room holds only a bed, a television, and a table. When I visited with a volunteer, there was no chair, so we had to sit on the bed. The air in the basement was so poor that I usually couldn't stay long. After A-Wen had a stroke, he has to carefully, painstakingly climb up to street level (têng-á-kha, the covered walkway) by himself every day. With mother and son living in such a small space, conflict is almost unavoidable. After work, the son often goes to an internet café to play games or sleep rather than come home.

Sister Xiao-Jing lives on the same street as A-Wen. She has two grandsons with cerebral palsy who come home from their care institution during Lunar New Year or holidays to stay with her. Grandma lives with her two teenage grandsons in a room smaller than 20 square meters. Since the boys have limited mobility, Xiao-Jing has to carry them next door to use a shared bathroom with several neighbors. Because of her work, Xiao-Jing has no choice but to rent this room less than five minutes from Longshan Temple MRT Station, even though the NT$8,000 monthly rent is a heavy burden for her. A place this old would only cost five or six thousand elsewhere.

To better understand the women's living conditions, I asked A-Xue to let me photograph her room. Walking down the narrow hallway, the door opened, and my first thought was: this can't be a room — it must be a closet. Once inside, I couldn't even stretch my arms out to either side. The room was piled with clothes and blankets; to decorate the makeshift wooden partition, A-Xue had carefully put up a few photos torn from a calendar. The bathroom she shares with other tenants — which doubles as a place to hang laundry — is right next to it. At night, if someone uses the toilet, I imagine she can hear everything clearly.

The Silent Underclass

If these women lived out in the countryside, I wouldn't find it surprising — but they live less than 15 minutes from the Presidential Office, in the heart of downtown Taipei. Once, I brought a volunteer who worked at the Taipei City Urban Development Department to visit A-Xue. When the volunteer wanted to use the bathroom, A-Xue took her in, and the volunteer was stunned by A-Xue's living conditions. If a fire ever broke out in the building where A-Xue, Xiao-Jing, or A-Wen live, how would they escape through such narrow passageways? The interior partitions, floors, and ceilings are all flammable wood, with no fire alarms installed — the consequences could be unthinkable. Don't buildings like these need to pass fire safety inspections?

Old neighborhoods need urban renewal, but renewal also brings unintended consequences. A few months ago, I noticed that in front of Building D nearby, the women who used to wait for customers were gone, replaced by police officers standing guard around the clock. The women told me that because an apartment building was being constructed next door to Building D, the developer worried the sex trade would hurt property values, so they tipped off a newspaper reporter to come investigate. In truth, the sex trade in Wanhua is nothing new, but the reporter wrote a sensational story, forcing the police to take action. Ironically, the sex workers across from Building D are still working — the police just told them not to dress provocatively or stand by the road, and to wait for customers in the alley instead. The women who used to work at Building D simply moved across the street to Building Z.

Most people in Taipei know Wanhua has homeless people, but they don't know this city also has a group of people living at the very bottom of society who aren't as visible as the homeless — they are the "Silent Poor."

A Dark Corner

Recently I saw this passage on lawyer Lu Chiu-yuan's Facebook:

"NHK Japan aired a drama this past spring named after this very phrase, 'Silent Poverty.' The show's protagonist is a social worker, and through the eyes of actress Kyoko Fukada's character, the drama uncovers the desperate circumstances of Tokyo's poor, and the social worker's dedication to her calling. In the first episode, Fukada's character successfully rallies the community to help an elderly woman clean out her trash-filled home. After her success, her supervisor is displeased instead of pleased, because now the whole country is calling this department for help — but Fukada pushes back: 'Isn't the whole point of being a social worker to bring more of the darkness to light, and help fill the emptiness inside people?'"

Our society isn't lacking in resources, but many people at the bottom of society don't even know what resources are available to them — this is what's called "silent poverty." No one notices them until something happens, and only then do we say, in hindsight, what they could have done.

Bao Bao is in her fifties, illiterate, and I took her to meet with a social worker. The social worker asked how much her rent was, and she said NT$5,000 a month, with electricity charged separately.

"How is the electricity calculated?"

"NT$6 per unit."

The social worker and I both thought this was outrageous — electricity is only about NT$2.1 per unit, so how could the landlord be charging NT$6?

"Do you keep track of how many units you use each month?"

"Oh no, I can't — I'm illiterate."

The landlord was clearly treating Bao Bao like a lamb to be fleeced. Last month, the landlord took NT$2,000 from Bao Bao, saying the electricity bill would be deducted from it each month, so Bao Bao had no idea how much electricity she'd actually used over those two months. Of course, she also didn't know that the Taipei City Government offers rent subsidies for low-income households renting housing. Many landlords don't report their rental income for tax purposes, and even if a tenant qualifies for a subsidy, the landlord may refuse to let them apply, to avoid tax exposure.

Advocating for Housing Justice

Augustine said: "Charity is no substitute for justice withheld."

Solving this kind of silent poverty can't rely on charity or social resources alone — many people simply don't know what resources are available to them. The justice they are owed requires someone to speak up for them, to become their eyes, ears, and voice. Articles 22 and 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights state: "Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security... Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including... housing... and necessary social services." Simply put, what Bao Bao and others at the bottom of society need is an "advocate."

Scripture says the Holy Spirit is our "Advocate" — also translated Comforter, or Counselor. The original Greek word is parakletos, meaning one who helps, comforts, guides, and pleads on our behalf. Take a look around you — is there someone nearby who needs your help, comfort, or guidance? Please don't say you're not a social worker and there's nothing you can do. If you can read, search for information online, and are willing to step outside your comfort zone and give a little time and effort, you can make a difference. Have you heard the story of the boy throwing starfish back into the sea? An old man watches a boy, during low tide, painstakingly throw stranded starfish back into the ocean one by one. The old man says there are thousands of starfish on the beach — what difference could this possibly make? The boy throws another starfish into the sea and smiles: "It made a difference to that one!"

Randy Lewis, former senior vice president at Walgreens in the U.S., wrote a moving book called No Greatness Without Goodness, reminding us: "Compassion compels us to remove the world's suffering; justice inspires us to remove the source of that suffering." Beyond helping Bao Bao find social resources, I also hope she and the other women can find better housing. The Homeless Taiwan organization, which serves the homeless, has a program like this — transforming a three-bedroom apartment into affordable rental housing run by an NGO. Would any church be willing to take part in something like this?

I read a news report about a developer in Kaohsiung who organized a fundraising banquet, bringing together 25 developers and a hundred businesses from Kaohsiung to raise NT$5 million. If these developers were willing to invest their expertise in building social housing, it would mean far more in the long run than handing out boxed lunches or blankets to the homeless in winter.

One church-planting strategy in the U.S. involves gathering a group of believers burdened for evangelism to move into impoverished neighborhoods, purchase property in the community, and work together with residents to renovate old or abandoned houses — improving the quality of the living environment while sharing the gospel and transforming lives. I believe Taiwan's church has no shortage of people with business savvy and professional skill. If they were willing to build housing that young people could afford to buy and the poor could afford to rent, what a wonderful testimony that would be for the Lord!