Living on the Streets | Interview with Wanhua Social Welfare Center Social Worker Chu I-Chun, Da-Pang, and Professor Wu Tsung-Sheng (Part 2)

How Unhoused People Imagine Their Lives

Most people have little direct contact with those living at the bottom or margins of society. Even within the same city, unhoused people often become part of the background rather than being seen as people living alongside everyone else. Because our daily lives rarely overlap, much of what we think we know about homelessness comes from imagination rather than interaction.

The person we interviewed is exactly the sort of face many people glimpse on the street but almost never speak with. He has a large belly, thinning hair, ordinary athletic wear, and simple slippers, and he sits quietly. His nickname is Da-Pang. Da-Chu said she has known him for eight years and joked that his love of food turned him from "Little Pang" into "Big Pang." He appears mild and harmless, perhaps a little naïve-the kind of person who might never become part of your social circle but would never seem like an enemy. When Da-Chu introduced him as single, Da-Pang quietly corrected her: he was married. Only then did he explain that his spouse was a Thai woman he had never met-a nominal marriage. His life has involved a sham marriage, dummy accounts, mobile-phone lines opened in his name, and a three-month prison sentence arising from a dummy-account case.

Hidden Power on the Street

Dummy accounts have been one of the JRF's major issues this year. Our initial focus was on people deceived in job scams, romance scams, or situations where they trusted relatives or friends and lent out an account. Through contact with social workers from Homeless Taiwan Association and Do You A Flavor, however, we learned that unhoused people are another group frequently targeted by fraud rings seeking bank accounts.

Da-Chu explained that people living on the street are unusually visible targets. Fraud rings may use other unhoused people as intermediaries to recruit them. Newcomers who do not yet understand the danger may hand over an account without realizing what is happening. Others sense something is wrong but still face pressure. They may be told they will lose access to a sleeping place, day labor, or temple-fair work if they refuse, or they may give in because the request comes from someone close to them. Explicit threats and implicit pressure both operate within the power relationships of street life.

Da-Pang is mild-tempered and avoids conflict. When a friend said a company "needed" to use his account, he agreed without much thought. He received three or four thousand NT dollars, was taken to meals and a hotel, and was asked to open four bank accounts and four mobile-phone lines. Not long afterward he became wanted by the authorities. He appeared in court three times without a lawyer or other legal assistance. Hiring counsel did not seem realistic to him because the cost was far beyond his means and he assumed the chance of success was small. The case ultimately resulted in a three-month prison term that could not be commuted to a fine.

The Distance Between Street Life and the Law

"I didn't really plan to fight it. If they were going to lock me up, then lock me up." Da-Pang's comment captures how many unhoused people respond to a legal system that feels completely outside their experience. People with little cultural or social capital may not understand dense legal rules and may have great difficulty explaining the circumstances in which they acted. Faced with that distance, giving up can feel easier than trying to defend themselves.

The JRF began focusing on dummy-account cases around 2014 and 2015, when the conviction rate was roughly 98%. In practical terms, once prosecutors indicted, conviction was almost automatic. The rate has declined somewhat but has remained above 90%. Many defendants may never have intended to help a fraud scheme. Yet they cannot explain clearly why they handed over an account or reconstruct the social and economic context in which the decision was made. With little legal understanding and few resources for defense, some simply plead guilty.

The problem is not limited to homelessness. Anyone can be deceived into handing over account information-for example, when a purported employer asks for an account for payroll deposits, or when a lender claims it needs to move funds through an account to "repair" a borrower's credit. These are familiar fraud tactics. The difference is that unhoused people usually have fewer resources, weaker support networks, and less ability to defend themselves, making them especially vulnerable to the consequences.

Legal proceedings depend on evidence, and defendants often cannot produce evidence showing the power relationships that shaped their decision or the pressure they faced when an account was handed over. "Proving that I had no intent to assist a crime" can therefore become nearly impossible. Even if the evidentiary rules do not change, sentencing could still take greater account of the varied backgrounds behind dummy-account cases. Da-Chu emphasized that homelessness is not simply a matter of having no money. Some clients may receive more than NT$20,000 a month in benefits and still be unable to refuse a demand that threatens their stability or relationships within street life. If the justice system reduces the explanation to "they were poor and wanted easy money," it misses the coercion and social pressure that may have been operating.

Law as a Mechanism of Social Exclusion

"For people who do not have the capacity to deal with these cases, the legal process itself becomes a barrier and eventually a form of social exclusion," Professor Wu Tsung-Sheng said. Drawing on years of work with debtors and people living in poverty, he noted that people whose economic resources, family networks, cultural capital, health, and physical condition are all weak already have fewer chances to survive within ordinary institutions. If they also have little understanding of the legal system, they are poorly equipped both to assess the consequences of lending out an account and to defend themselves after prosecution begins.

Professor Wu does not believe criminal prosecution can solve the dummy-account problem by itself. The system may exclude and punish the most vulnerable people at the bottom of the scheme while leaving the upstream fraud organizations intact. Social-welfare agencies may spend years helping someone obtain stable housing and employment, only to see that fragile progress collapse when the person is incarcerated for a few months because of a dummy-account case. Meanwhile, the fraud ring simply recruits another person.

The justice system exists to uphold fairness and justice, but formal justice is not necessarily the same as substantive justice. In a narrow doctrinal analysis, an unhoused person who provided an account may satisfy the elements for aiding fraud: the actus reus, unlawfulness, and culpability may all appear to be present. But substantive justice asks a broader question. If the process merely identifies the most accessible person to punish, closes the case, and gives the original fraud victim a formal answer without reducing the underlying fraud or strengthening social stability, it may address the symptom without the cause.

"The ironic thing is that we expend enormous effort without actually solving the problem," Professor Wu said. Fraud rings operate through sophisticated organizations that make it easy to obtain accounts at the front end. The justice system then finds the visible, downstream people whose names appear on the accounts, brings them to court, convicts them, and sends them to prison. After release, social workers invest substantial resources trying to rebuild their housing, work, and daily lives-only for the same person to remain vulnerable to another scheme. In the pursuit of formal fairness, the machinery can pull unhoused people, social workers, police, prosecutors, and judges into the same recurring cycle.

Is There an Ideal Solution?

The interview ended in a period of silence, as though no ideal solution were available. Law is designed to punish people who intentionally participate in crime, but it is much less effective at distinguishing people who become involved without criminal intent-such as someone with very limited legal knowledge or someone acting under pressure. Investigators may regard account security as ordinary common sense and infer that anyone who hands over an account must have accepted the possibility of fraud. That inference is understandable but incomplete because it overlooks the power relationships of everyday life and the fact that unhoused people often have fewer resources, greater exposure to inducement or coercion, and less ability to use legal institutions to explain themselves.

There is no single solution to the dummy-account problem. Continued dialogue between the justice system and social-welfare professionals can at least make the different dimensions of the problem visible, replace assumptions with a more realistic understanding of the pressures different actors face, and help build approaches that protect both vulnerable people and the legitimate goals of criminal justice.