Voice of the Two Sessions | Member Chen Yongliang Provides Suggestions on the Rental Housing Protection Program in Shanghai: Provide Rent Subsidies to Eligible Tenants
As one of the important measures to address the housing needs of low-to-middle income groups, including new citizens and young people, the construction and supply of affordable rental housing has attracted widespread attention. How to make this initiative better and benefit more people?
At the 2025 Shanghai Two Sessions currently under way, Chen Yongliang, a member of the Shanghai Political Consultative Conference Committee and executive deputy director of the Huangpu Central Science and Technology Innovation Zone Construction Office, submitted a proposal titled “Suggestions on Further Optimizing the City’s Affordable Rental Housing Policy”. He proposed increasing financial support for affordable rental housing, studying the establishment of a special fund for rental subsidies, and providing rent subsidies to eligible tenants.
Relevant data shows that in recent years, Shanghai has increased the efforts to raise and build affordable rental housing, with a plan to build 470,000 units during the “14th Five-Year Plan” period. Among them, 72,000 units of affordable rental housing will be built in 2024, and more than 30,000 beds will be provided for the “Home for Urban Construction and Management Workers of the New Era”.
“This fully demonstrates the city’s active investment and determination in housing security. However, there are still some problems that need to be further optimized and improved in the actual implementation process,” said Chen Yongliang. He identified four main issues: 1) insufficient price competitiveness with relatively high rent prices; 2) the need to optimize tenant access requirements with current ones being relatively strict and inflexible; 3) poor matching of construction standards and demand with a shortage of small apartments or bed-type accommodation; and 4) an inflexible mechanism for allocating construction tasks.
Chen Yongliang explained that affordable rental housing initially had an issue of insufficient total supply, but now there is a structural surplus problem with conflicts between total supply and demand structures. In some suburbs or urban fringe areas, the vacancy rate of affordable rental housing can reach 20% or even 25%.
“Therefore, I propose that we should pay attention to not implementing a one-size-fits-all approach for increasing affordable housing. In areas where supply does not meet demand, we can appropriately accelerate construction, while in areas where supply exceeds demand, we should stop,” said Chen Yongliang. He believes that for areas with excessive supply, local policies should be adjusted accordingly. For example, these areas can lower the access requirements or allocate cross-regional affordable rental housing resources.
To address these issues, Chen Yongliang proposed four specific suggestions in his proposal:
First, increase financial support for affordable rental housing. “The underlying reason for the high rent level of affordable rental housing in Shanghai is that these projects require long-term holding and operation, which requires a large amount of funds. In areas with good locations, whether newly built using R4 (land for rental housing) or converted from existing buildings, the costs are high,” said Chen Yongliang. Therefore, he proposed to focus on both supply and demand to reduce the cost of affordable rental housing construction and renting. On the supply side, evaluate the price of R4 land supply reasonably to reduce developer construction costs. On the demand side, study the establishment of a special fund for rental subsidies to provide rent subsidies to eligible tenants based on their income level and family size. “For example, higher subsidy ratios can be given to key protected groups such as low-income families and newly employed university students,” said Chen Yongliang.
Second, flexibly adjust the access policy for affordable rental housing and relax the access requirements. “For example, after reviewing the authenticity of their housing needs, elderly people with stable retirement income after retirement can be allowed to apply for affordable rental housing,” said Chen Yongliang. He also suggested giving certain eligible families living in the inner ring of Shanghai with reasonable needs such as accompanying their children to school and renting nearby (with school admission letters or study certificates), temporary transition due to housing tightness (providing relevant supporting materials), or convenient accommodation for elderly medical treatment (providing hospital diagnosis certificates and medical records), a certain period (such as 1-3 years) of qualification for affordable rental housing, with allocated housing based on actual needs. At the same time, it allows tenants to withdraw their housing provident fund to pay for affordable rental housing rent.
Third, optimize construction standards and room design. When formulating construction guidance standards for affordable rental housing, we should fully consider the actual needs of low-to-middle income groups. For groups such as deliverymen and delivery drivers, encourage the construction of centralized bed-type rental housing equipped with shared facilities such as public toilets, shower rooms, and simple kitchens. For independent low-income individuals, plan and design more small apartments ranging from 20 to 30 square meters with a simple yet practical decoration style equipped with basic furniture and appliances at low rent prices. At the same time, focus