OURs - The Organization of Urban Re-s
OURs 都市改革組織
OURs was formed during the Snails Without Shells Movement and has sought to reform urban space up until today. OURs brings together a group of people whose view of the urban space draws on experts, in the hope that through our collective efforts, we can implement changes, as well as provide oversight over urban development with regards to equality and realizing social welfare. Through research investigations, OURs makes policy recommendations, carrying out various lobbying activities, while also carrying out educational initiatives directed at society as a whole. We draw on the experiences of other countries, in connecting reformers of urban renewal internationally, to allow for more possibilities in Taiwan's urban spaces.
Starting in 2010, because of Taiwan's high real-estate prices and the government failing to realize housing policy, OURs united a number of civil society groups to form the "Social Housing Promotion Alliance." In 2014, the "Nest Movement" began a new wave of social housing movement, leading to a change in the government's housing policy. This includes social housing, the housing register for actual housing prices, or unified real estate tax.
In 2018, OURs sought to introduce the concept of cooperative housing to Taiwan, publishing a number of books on this. In 2022, OURs implemented the New Taipei Yuanhe Collaborative Housing Project, establishing Taiwan's first social housing complex autonomously run by young people, as a third way beyond buying or renting homes. OURs was formed in the hopes of pushing the government to implement progressive housing policy, to allow people to benefit from the development of the city, to have a better way of life. In a market with unsound renting and buying of houses, OURs emphasizes generational justice and consumer rights as means of implementing housing justice. OURs is a force for change that Taiwan cannot lack.
Connecting different NGOs to promote the planning and implementation of social housing and to make social housing an important aim of both central and local governments.
To give robust social housing policy a sound legal mechanism
To reveal information on real estate exchanges, to realize an orderly real estate market
Impose heavier taxes on short-term buying, to prevent real estate speculation
Cultivate the development of the rental market, manage renting behavior
To have an experimental model for cooperative housing, as a self-managed space for young people