From Shelters to Social Housing — A Space Where Abused Women Can Grow a Sense of Subjectivity
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This article is part of the 29th issue of LEAP — Voices of Youth e-letter. Subscribe now.
“To me, it is about insufficient space. Space is very important because it is a right.”
Says Yu-Hua Lee, the Director of the Garden of Hope Foundation’s Linkou Service Center and Social Work Department. Among social support networks, abused women and children in Taiwan can only reach out to shelters for temporary relief from violent environments. Due to uneven resource allocation across different counties and cities, some shelters are only available for a few days, providing limited assistance to abused women, children, and youth in the long run.
Founded in 1992, the first shelter in Taiwan was the “Safe Home” outsourced by the Taipei City Government’s Department of Social Welfare. The Garden of Hope Foundation also participated in this project after the government assigned shelter placement services to local governments in 1998. Looking at shelter distribution, Taiwan had over 60 shelters by the end of 2015 and more than half of them are located in municipalities. Nevertheless, there is no less demand for shelters in other counties and cities.
Since 2018, the concept of social housing has been introduced to the placement system for abused women. In coordination with the Garden of Hope Foundation, the government provides physical facilities to increase the likelihood of long-term placement for abused women and their children. Currently, about 40% of the 2,500 social housing units in Linkou are provided to underprivileged groups, of which 20 units are provided to abused women.
More than Shelters — Social Housing Satisfies Needs for Personal Space
Unlike the short-term placement at traditional shelters, social housing fulfills needs for more complete and independent space.
“Shelters provide a closed environment for group living with 4-person bunk beds, much like a student dormitory. An individual room will be assigned to women with children. However, lifestyles and daily habits still vary within a group.”
According to Yu-Hua Lee, the lifestyle at traditional shelters may add stress for abused women despite temporary escape from high-risk environments. It is hard to maintain integrity and a sense of self in a compressed space with a deprivation of personal space. Yu-Hua believes such constraints arise because current shelters in Taiwan are not based on households as units. In contrast, every family is provided with their own personal space at social housing, which creates less friction between parents and children, as well as between each household. With more comprehensive spaces and less time constraints, it is possible for abused women, children, and youth to build more integrated support systems within these communities.
“We visited the Orange House in the Netherlands, which is a more open shelter where friends and families can visit.” While the current type of closed, highly confidential shelters remain necessary, Yu-Hua believes it is more adequate for divorced abused women with restraining orders to live in social housing in the later phases of their escape from abusive environments. In this way, women and their children can all develop personal lifestyles while developing a sense of self.
Integrated Resources, Job Opportunities, and After-School Care at Social Housing
As Yu-Hua commented, social housing not only provides temporary protection to women and children, but also integrates community resources and serves “financial,” “residential,” and “relationship repairing” functions.
“Social housing has the function of horizontal resource integration. Here, we have an after-school class called the Garden of Sunflowers. It is not only for children as other classmates and underprivileged children can also invite their friends to come. This solves both the issues of housing and after-school care. The Garden of Sunflowers refines the community’s care services in addition to offering children’s psychological counseling, play therapy, parent education, and after-school care.
Aside from child care assistance, the Linkou social housing also features the “Good Times” cafe. Women living in social housing may work at the cafe until they find a stable job that provides a basic salary to pay for life expenses. This is a function that shelters never had in the past. In addition, the cafe also hosts activities on an irregular basis. By inviting residents in the community to participate in the activities, it is possible to form a mutually beneficial network through exchange and understanding.
Facilities such as the Garden of Sunflowers and Good Times cafe are a part of the cultivation and support system for women under community resource integration. They also equip social housing with the functions of housing and social repair.
Government Divisions Should Act as Coordinators
Although social housing provides abused women with more comprehensive resources, available human resources for private sectors and nonprofit organizations, such as the Garden of Hope Foundation still remain limited, not to mention nearly NT$400,000 (≈ USD$14,374) of rent every month. Yu-Hua admitted “it is a heavy burden to our foundation.” At this time, social housing is only available in Linkou with about 20 available households. The inclusion of more women and children experiencing abuse will need to rely on further governmental integration.
“Though the government is responsible for building houses, how are residents taken care of after moving in?” While social housing is an integration of resources to some extent, Yu-Hua said facilities and services are actually each operated by different divisions. If the supervisors of the social service system, i.e. the Ministry of Health and Welfare, can comprehensively make an inventory of current services and needs of NPOs at the Linkou social housing, the government can introduce professional assistance and integrate resources more effectively when leasing social housing to each organization.
Recently, the government has promoted “residence justice” in hopes of reducing the burden on underprivileged groups, enabling them to start a new life, as well as introducing more community services, constructing a social security net, and implementing the value of equality. From the perspective of having served abused women for so many years, Yu-Hua believes that “social housing provides a good foundation to the building of a social security net.”
Also in This Issue:
The Conditions of Abused Women in Taiwan after Two Decades of Enactment of the Domestic Violence Act
An experienced social worker observed that financial relief and childcare service are critical to help abused women escape from violence.
Author : Evelyn Yang
Freelance writer / Graduate student in Journalism
