Douliu Vagrant Shelter

One of the few surviving vagrant detention facilities in Taiwan, located on Gongzheng Street (公正街) in Douliu, Yunlin. The building traces its origins to the 1905 Vagrant Control Regulations (臺灣浮浪者取締規則), under which the colonial authorities detained not only the homeless and destitute but also petty criminals and those deemed socially disruptive. The interior still contains iron-barred confinement cells and smaller isolation rooms with wooden doors for those at risk of self-harm. After the war the facility was repainted as a “vagrant shelter” (遊民收容所) and continued to operate under the KMT administration, marking a gradual shift from punitive detention toward social welfare. It was registered as a historic building in 2021 as a witness to the evolution of homeless policy across Taiwan’s successive regimes.