City trying new ways to provide services to elderly
By Echo Hu |
July 21, 2012, Saturday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
SHANGHAI is exploring different ways to pay for services for the growing number of elderly people, but more subsidies are still needed, the Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau said yesterday.
The city is investing nearly 80 million yuan (US$12 million) of public welfare funds from lottery sales every year to help nonprofit social organizations provide services for seniors or establish nursing homes, said Ma Yili, director of the bureau.
About 10 million to 15 million yuan of the money is used as venture capital investment.
The rest is used to support projects from social organizations that win bids from residential community authorities, Ma said.
"It is risky to pour such a sum of money from the lottery into services because the projects may fail, but we want to conduct trials for projects that may be just ideas and see which ones we should support," Ma said.
Applicants would get a subsidy from the fund if their proposal passes an assessment by experts. Some have gotten venture capital from the lottery money after passing assessments to set up seniors' homes.
A woman who set up a seniors' home in the Pudong New Area received a subsidy totaling 200,000 yuan as a start-up fund as one of the very first applicants, Ma said.
Regulations were relaxed last year to allow foreign investment in the field, but only in joint ventures with Chinese firms. The response has not been good in Shanghai as few have wanted to participate in the sector.
Ma said it was still very difficult to implement the house-for-pension scheme, and a trial in the field has stopped.
The term refers to a new scheme to increase the income of senior citizens in the city. People who are 65 or older are qualified to sell their home to the city's housing fund, but they can continue to live in it by paying a market-level rent to the fund.
Few senior citizens, however, were qualified as many houses are not solely owned by the seniors and, in addition, many of their children have been opposed to the idea.
The city is investing nearly 80 million yuan (US$12 million) of public welfare funds from lottery sales every year to help nonprofit social organizations provide services for seniors or establish nursing homes, said Ma Yili, director of the bureau.
About 10 million to 15 million yuan of the money is used as venture capital investment.
The rest is used to support projects from social organizations that win bids from residential community authorities, Ma said.
"It is risky to pour such a sum of money from the lottery into services because the projects may fail, but we want to conduct trials for projects that may be just ideas and see which ones we should support," Ma said.
Applicants would get a subsidy from the fund if their proposal passes an assessment by experts. Some have gotten venture capital from the lottery money after passing assessments to set up seniors' homes.
A woman who set up a seniors' home in the Pudong New Area received a subsidy totaling 200,000 yuan as a start-up fund as one of the very first applicants, Ma said.
Regulations were relaxed last year to allow foreign investment in the field, but only in joint ventures with Chinese firms. The response has not been good in Shanghai as few have wanted to participate in the sector.
Ma said it was still very difficult to implement the house-for-pension scheme, and a trial in the field has stopped.
The term refers to a new scheme to increase the income of senior citizens in the city. People who are 65 or older are qualified to sell their home to the city's housing fund, but they can continue to live in it by paying a market-level rent to the fund.
Few senior citizens, however, were qualified as many houses are not solely owned by the seniors and, in addition, many of their children have been opposed to the idea.
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