"I remember feeling incredibly sad. When I was 30 and working at Citibank - where I started my financial career - I didn't feel this sense of despair. My generation lived through a more affordable time. Housing wasn't cheap, but it also wasn't as expensive as it is now. Over the past 20 to 30 years, housing prices have surged, while salaries have barely grown."
"That was during the pandemic in 2021, several years after I retired from my last job as the head of Taiwan at Fidelity. We started scouting livable apartments and matched them with young tenants. In the first year, I personally covered a quarter of the rent - about 500,000 Taiwan dollars. Today, we run 10 such youth apartments across Taipei. The tenants apply for government subsidies and partner with landlords willing to accept these tenants in exchange for tax incentives."
"In return, tenants in these co-living apartments run community programs. One tenant taught Japanese to elderly people. Another - Tseng Chih Wei, a performance artist - has organized community theater projects and workshops for people living with HIV. Not every tenant runs programs perfectly, but we want to give them a chance to try. For us, these projects are meant to be empowering opportunities - not charity."
Timothy Wang, a retired finance executive, responded to reports of young Taipei workers feeling hopeless about unaffordable housing by founding a nonprofit that rents apartments for youth. Beginning in 2021, the organization scouts livable units, matches young tenants, and secures government subsidies and landlord tax-incentive partnerships. Wang personally subsidized a quarter of initial rents, about 500,000 Taiwan dollars, and the program now operates ten youth apartments across Taipei. Tenants run community programs—teaching Japanese to elderly, organizing theater and workshops for people living with HIV—framed as empowering opportunities rather than charity.
Read at Business Insider
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