無殼老蝸牛的生活實況：從一棟出租公寓看老年租屋者的居住狀況與問題

Abstract

「以租代買」在都市房價高漲之際，能是一種安居的選擇嗎？租屋至老的無殼蝸牛過著什麼樣的生活？在既有的文獻中卻無從得知。既有的老人租屋文獻，多為量化研究，受訪者的面貌模糊，不足以讓讀者了解其生活實況。而老人住宅的相關文獻，則多為既有的公部門、財團老人住宅居民的居住滿意度調查與硬體檢討，無法呈現因租金過高而未能入住、以致轉往民間租屋的老人居住需求。 為彌補既有研究在民間租屋老人生活實況的缺口，本研究擇一處民間（非財團）經營的集合式出租公寓，作為主要調查對象，將一般市場中的租屋年長者做清楚的描繪，以此為主要而基本的研究起始。再藉由這些租屋年長者的接觸、訪談紀錄，疊合出他們的處境，企圖從「出租公寓居民」的生活實況與反應看老人住居問題。 研究發現既有的公部門、財團老人住宅雖有高規格的硬體設計及服務提供，但收費門檻高於一般退休勞工所能負擔，明顯無法回應該階層租屋高齡者的居住需求。而本研究所在區域的租屋住宅雖然並非理想的居所，但卻是這個城市裡退休高齡勞工租屋者安身立命的所在，一個「可負擔」的居所；並展現了租屋市場裡「包容而富彈性」的面向，在房價居高不下之際，代替政府消化了部分「可負擔住宅」不足將引致的社會問題。

Living by renting a house instead of buying one may be a way to face the sharply rising house prices in the city. But how are those who renting houses in their whole life? We have very few information about them. Literature on elderly tenants is rare. And most of them are quantitative research, in which we cannot understand who the tenants are, how are their living conditions. Individual elderly tenants’ profile and their daily life is sketchy in the existing literature. If we check into the literature on elderly housing, we will find that in Taiwan most of the researches focus on premises which were built by government or by the financial groups. These researches usually aim on physical living conditions or the post-occupancy evaluation of the residents, try to find improvements to make those elderly housings (which still have vacant units) better and more appealing. Such researches often ignored that these kind of elderly housing all have the same problem: the rent is too high to the retired laborers. To fill such research gap, I studied a rental apartment which is not managed by government nor by any financial groups. I try to portray the residents’ lives and social network in the building as well as around the area. This rental apartment is definitely not an ideal place to live. But to the residents the prime principle is what they can “afford” to pay the rent. I found that this rental apartment and its’ neighborhood have some special quality: comprehensive and flexible. Such special quality permeated there indeed help the government to reduce its burden caused by the deficiency of affordable housing, and minimized the coming social problems.