Following the establishment of Dongshih Family Welfare Service Center, the Social Affairs Bureau of Taichung City Government setup on May 7 thesecond center at Tiankuo Community located on Hansi West Road of Beitun District.Doubling the manpower from the past, eight social workers are stationed there to provide social welfare counseling services to nearly 330,000residents living in Beitun District and East District.

The territory of Taichung City has expanded greatly after the merge of former Taichung County. To provide the public with accessible and localized welfare services, the Social Affairs Bureau has been planning to establish service centers in some administrative districts since 2012.

Beitun District is the most populous in Taichung City, while the population of East Districtis also increasing ever year. Occupying only3%ofthe area of Taichung City, these two administrative districts have more than10% of the city’s population, of which 75.92% are young and middle-aged people and 7.9% are senior citizens (lower than 8.8%, the city’s average). It shows that the areasaredensely populated and the young and middle-aged groups are more in need of social welfare resources.

Wang Xiu-Yan (王秀燕), Director-General of Social Affairs Bureau said, “Beitun District used to have large numbers of social welfare application cases and caused great burdens to ourcolleagues. The Beitun Family Welfare Service Center is established to integrate all the formal and informal community resources to support economically troubled, disadvantaged andhigh-risk families. The Centeris located at Floor 3, No. 260, Sect.3, Hansi West Road (Tiankuo Community).

Social Affairs Bureau pointed out further that the family welfare service center is a new family-oriented community service model, whose smooth setup is attributable tothe manpower increase plan supported by the central government and the city government. After the addition of social workers in 2013, every social worker has to serve averagely 55,000 people down from 70,000 people in 2012. Meanwhile; every social worker in the Beitun Center is expected to serve 40,000 people or 5,000 vulnerable families.