Have Anyone Noticed The Many Homeless People in Taipe/Taiwan?
Is there a thread about them here?
Thx, :).
Actually, compared to my city back home there are relatively few homeless here. Doesn’t make it any less sad though.
Back in Chicago they are everywhere asking for money and such…I maybe seen 2-3 in the last 6 months here.
er…if U think there is a lot here, I am guessing U have never been to my home town of Toronto, Canada.
Chicago has its fair share, but I found them to at least be civil (well, more civilized than their Canadian counterparts).
I think Taipei has very very few, I am guessing either the economy is really good here or they just get trucked out somewhere.
I’m on the oppposite side - back home, I saw maybe a total of 3 homeless people in 23 years. Here they’re hard not to see.
You’d think with the family infrastructure here there wouldn’t be that many, and compared to the US, there are virtually none.
Fairly shocking for my wife when she went to the “Wealthiest Nation on earth” and saw street people in their hundreds in Portland, Spokane and San Diego. The most whacked city I’ve lived in for homeless people is San Francisco by a wide margin.
I am however, seeing a growing number of homeless people compared to when I first arrived.
Many are old soldiers without families. Also, I’m sure you’ve seen the family infastructure breaking down in recent years as modernization and a culture of me-first clashes with old fashioned values.
Asian family values is one of those myths that persists despite all evidence to the contrary.
Sad enough, appears that stray dogs get more attention than the indeed fast increasing and very noticeable number of homeless people in Taipei City. Would not agree that they are mostly 49’ers, they are well looked after if they stay at the veteran’s home or so. Shocking to see that the ones homelss are mostly youngish and are often physically handicaped.
Near my home there is a homeless man and a stray dog that look after each other. The man sleeps under his bicycle cart with his dog and never makes eye contact with anyone. The dog seems happy, its belly looks full and the man seems to really love his dog. It’s sad to see people and animals living on the street, but I can’t help feeling touched by this man’s warmth towards his dog.
This man is just one example, but I see a lot more homeless in Taipei now then I did when I lived here in the early to mid-90’s.
Didn’t say most, but many. In any case, I got that from a social worker in Taipei in the mid-nineties. Could be, probably is very different now.
Didn’t say most, but many. In any case, I got that from a social worker in Taipei in the mid-nineties. Could be, probably is very different now.[/quote]
very possible, there are fewer of them around now 
Back in the mid 1990’s when I lived here first, I saw 1 homeless person.
Seen a fair bit more this time around.
Many?
I’ve noticed a lack of homeless people in Taiwan. But then again, I’m from the San Francisco Bay Area.
And I am from the Xinyi District and why would there be a lack of people that are unfortunate not to have a home? Chris, I do not understand your post!
In the San Francisco Bay Area homeless people area very common sight. Coming from the San Francisco Bay Area, I am used to seeing lots of homeless people.
In Taipei, the number of homeless people is minuscule compared to the San Francisco Bay Area. Therefore, I, having grown up in the Bay Area, perceive it as very few homeless in Taipei.
I have seen more Albinos in TW then I have homeless people, which is strange because before coming to TW, I have never seen an Albino before.
I think you are probably right about the absolute numbers, Chris. But I think you hit on an interesting point regarding the distinction between perceived number of homeless people, and the actual number.
The number of visible homeless in San Francisco is, indeed, shocking to many who visit the city for the first time. I used to drive up to SF from LA to visit family, and it was always a striking difference. After a while, however, I started to suspect that LA may not have that many fewer homeless people than SF – the difference was that they were more visible in SF. From what I have read, the SF city government has policies which discourage/disallow property owners and police from driving homeless from the wealthier parts of town to the poorer parts. The result: in LA you don’t see as many homeless people in the parts of town that tourists usually go to, because the homeless are all concentrated in the poorer parts of town.
Does anyone have an impression of whether the Taipei city government adopts a policy that is generally closer to the SF model or the LA model? I don’t know the answer to this question. But I do know that municipal/law-enforcement policy can have a dramatic effect on the perceived number of homeless people in a given city – and sometimes the perceived number can differ significantly from the actual one.
I’m sure that there are far more transients in LA, but you are right, they are more visible in SF. But I suspect they are more visible in SF as a result of the compact size of SF more than any government policy.
I’m a LA native as well, (Venture County) and the only time I ever saw transients growing up was when we went downtown to my Great-Granfather’s Tailor shop.
I don’t know if this is still the case today, but some cities, such as Portland had a novel way of keeping transients from sleeping in doorways of businesses downtown. They installed sprinkler systems with motion sensors that were turned on after hours, and any poor devil trying to escape the rain/cold got a cold blast of water the second they laid their cardboard down… :s
Yeah, that’s a good point about the physical size of the city.
The government policy angle is a tough one to measure I suppose. I certainly was not talking about city vehicles or police busses driving around loading people up and dumping them in other parts of town. It’s more a question of how much harassment of homeless people is allowed (e.g. your Portland sprinkler example). Private businesses and property owners play a large role, and if the police/city government is not receptive to complaints from homeless people (“Hey, that shopkeeper keeps shooting me with the garden hose whenever I lay down on the sidewalk near his place”) then homeless people will be forced to move on their own to parts of town where they can stay without being bothered. In other words, acts of omission, or a policy of inaction can often be just as influential to the outcome as proactive policies.
Hell, where are they? Not in my dirty NeiHu side street at least …
I have seen 2 in 1 year now, if I think back.
It is more back home…