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Homelessness in South Korea, a paradox under pressure
Homelessness is borderless – it is a universal dilemma that permeates our modern human existence. Time spent traveling the western coast of the United States made unavoidable the insurmountable financial difficulties and despair that have so many people in its grasp; sub-cities of disheveled tents expanded, swelling through the streets, and held at a distance unnerved tourists and residents alike. Society has neglected these people and they have been left to fend for themselves underneath the rug of social welfare. It was within this context that two months later I moved to South Korea, and was staggered by what at first seemed to me to be a quasi-utopian society almost exempt from the homelessness that had felt so visceral halfway across the world. It left me with the question: how is it that South Korea appears to have such a handle on homelessness?
Rationalizing my own experience, official numbers read that the homeless population in the United States is five times the size of that in South Korea – as a percentage of the population, the two countries have 1.5% and 0.3% homelessness respectively. Nonetheless, upon further analysis, South Korea invests significantly less on public welfare spending (taken as a percentage of GDP) than other OECD nations, with the United States devoting considerably more. In fact, South Korea falls fifth last amongst OECD nations, and dedicates only 12% of its GDP to the cause of social welfare. The OECD average is 20%. This lack of welfare spending as well as a steadily skyrocketing Korean housing index – that has seen a 25% increase since 2020 – is set against comparatively stagnant growth in average yearly salary. This information is paradoxical: how can a nation, at the economic behest of gentrification and expansion, invest so little in its social welfare system yet have such a modest homeless population? This article aims to understand this paradox.
The South Korean government does run outreach schemes to tackle the problem of homelessness. The most notable of these is run by the local Seoul government, and is called Simin Chatdongi. This roughly translates as “People Visiting Their Neighbors,” and is a program that encourages citizens to alert authorities when they believe someone may be on the verge of homelessness. Citizens who want to participate can sign up for the outreach program online or by telephoning the Dasan Call Centre (+82 120). Nonetheless, Tak Jang-Han, a PhD student from Seoul National University currently undertaking a doctorate thesis on South Korean homelessness, all whilst living in an impoverished area of Seoul, does not believe that such governmental outreach programs are effective in lowering the numbers of homeless. Tak spoke of the officials involved with Simin Chatdongi to SNU Quill, stating, “[they] go to homeless people and talk to them for a while, distribute goods, or link resources, but in my opinion, they don’t help them get out of homelessness.”
Tak believes that the Korean government does not have a handle on homelessness, and argues that “the number of homeless people counted by the Korean government is around 10,000, which is much less than the actual number.” He continued to describe the South Korean government’s conception of homelessness as “narrow,” and suggested that, if the government were to extend their definition when recording numbers, the population of homeless in the country could soar to forty times higher than previously estimated. This perspective has merit. The Ministry of Land, Transport, and Infrastructure has confirmed 430,000 unregistered households, many of which fall under the category of jjokbang housing. Jjokbang housing are shantytown communities of unregistered, poorly constructed, poorly maintained housing. With living spaces often smaller than two square meters in size, and with communities of 16-17 people often sharing two pit toilets between them, Tak believes that residents of such communities should also be recorded as homeless by the Korean government. To make clear Tak's perspective, the scale of homelessness in South Korea is not immediately visible because it is hidden within unregistered housing communities such as jjokbang housing, and governmental statistics are inaccurate because the definition used to classify homelessness is excessively narrow.
While the South Korean government statistically conceives of homelessness as archetypal street homelessness, the Institute of Global Homelessness offers a more nuanced definition: “Experiencing homelessness means lacking access to minimally adequate housing.” Importantly, the IGH definition also focuses upon the adequacy of one’s living conditions, and thus includes within its conception of homelessness, “persons living in severely inadequate and insecure housing.” The IGH conceives of homelessness in categories and if applied to South Korea, this IGH classification considers residents of jjokbang housing as “3H” homeless – “People living in non-conventional buildings and temporary structures that are unfit for human habitation.” In a similar manner, the United Nations, unlike the South Korean government, acknowledges that, “Rough sleeping is only one manifestation of homelessness, but not necessarily the most frequent one.”
Governments of countries that have similar unregistered housing communities do consider large swathes of those living within them as homeless. For instance, Brazil is a country that is infamous for having large favela neighborhoods in its cities. In an official UN report, the Brazilian government defines homelessness as “a group that has in common the extreme poverty, broken or weakened family ties and the lack of regular conventional housing, and that uses public places and degraded areas as living space and livelihood, temporarily or permanently.” Neglected housing that is found within favelas is considered by the government as a “degraded area” and thus their tenants are counted amongst the country’s official homelessness statistics. The South Korean government, in comparison, does not define homelessness with an adequately broad scope.
Tak is not alone in his argument that the South Korean government should extend its definition of homelessness. In fact, in 2018 the UN dispatched special rapporteur Leilana Farha to South Korea to investigate adequate housing within the country. Upon her visit, a report provided to her by the Korean NGOs for the Realization of Housing Rights reads,
“After the ratification of the UN International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Korean government received concerns and advice from all the four rounds of deliberation. It was pointed out, among others, that there is not sufficient information about the homeless … Thus, the Korean government should discard the narrow concept of “the homeless, etc.”, and it should redefine the concept and extent of homelessness, and thereby, it should identify the scale and current state of homelessness in the nation.”
Interestingly, just as Tak does, the report emphasizes that the South Korean definition of homelessness is too “narrow.” The UN has stated that “a number of challenges exist with regards to measuring homelessness, including the risk of excluding marginalized groups that are not ‘visibly’ homeless.” After her visit to South Korea and consequent to the NGO report cited here, Farha officially urged the South Korean government to “shift their approach,” to homelessness so that it “meets current human rights standards.” In response to Farha’s indictment the government responded that it “takes note of her recommendations.”
Not only is the government being urged to extend its definition of homelessness but also the mechanism by which South Korean homelessness is ostensibly hidden within inadequate, unregistered housing is also under strain. In recent years, with Seoul expanding radically, jjokbang housing has been destroyed to make way for high rise expansion. Notable examples of this have been near Seoul Station and Yeongdeungpo District. Nonetheless, with the destruction of neighborhoods comes the displacement of their previous residents – UN rapporteur Farha, after her visit to South Korea, said, “I am deeply concerned by the continuation of massive reconstruction projects resulting in the destruction of neighborhoods and displacement of individuals and families.” She continues in this statement to emphasize that the current Korean legal framework for urban redevelopment and reconstruction does not comply with internationally recognised human rights standards and continues to result in forced evictions. With increasing rents in the country and the absence of affordable housing in the form of jjokbang housing, South Korea’s poor are being left with nowhere to turn. Significantly, the average household debt in South Korea has been rapidly increasing in recent years, and now sits higher than any other OECD nation at 163% of net disposable income.
At the beginning of the article it was established that, statistically, there is a paradox as concerns homelessness in South Korea – minimal governmental welfare investment, a burgeoning housing index and comparatively stagnant growth in average yearly salary seem in stark contrast to the low numbers of homelessness recorded by the government. The UN has criticized South Korea’s attitude toward public welfare, and the manner in which the government defines homelessness; with an escalating crisis of household debt amidst soaring, expansive development, the country has unquestionably reached a watershed moment as concerns its approach to the issue of homelessness. It begs the question: what will the next few years bring for the underprivileged in South Korean society and how will their government respond?
Rationalizing my own experience, official numbers read that the homeless population in the United States is five times the size of that in South Korea – as a percentage of the population, the two countries have 1.5% and 0.3% homelessness respectively. Nonetheless, upon further analysis, South Korea invests significantly less on public welfare spending (taken as a percentage of GDP) than other OECD nations, with the United States devoting considerably more. In fact, South Korea falls fifth last amongst OECD nations, and dedicates only 12% of its GDP to the cause of social welfare. The OECD average is 20%. This lack of welfare spending as well as a steadily skyrocketing Korean housing index – that has seen a 25% increase since 2020 – is set against comparatively stagnant growth in average yearly salary. This information is paradoxical: how can a nation, at the economic behest of gentrification and expansion, invest so little in its social welfare system yet have such a modest homeless population? This article aims to understand this paradox.
The South Korean government does run outreach schemes to tackle the problem of homelessness. The most notable of these is run by the local Seoul government, and is called Simin Chatdongi. This roughly translates as “People Visiting Their Neighbors,” and is a program that encourages citizens to alert authorities when they believe someone may be on the verge of homelessness. Citizens who want to participate can sign up for the outreach program online or by telephoning the Dasan Call Centre (+82 120). Nonetheless, Tak Jang-Han, a PhD student from Seoul National University currently undertaking a doctorate thesis on South Korean homelessness, all whilst living in an impoverished area of Seoul, does not believe that such governmental outreach programs are effective in lowering the numbers of homeless. Tak spoke of the officials involved with Simin Chatdongi to SNU Quill, stating, “[they] go to homeless people and talk to them for a while, distribute goods, or link resources, but in my opinion, they don’t help them get out of homelessness.”
Tak believes that the Korean government does not have a handle on homelessness, and argues that “the number of homeless people counted by the Korean government is around 10,000, which is much less than the actual number.” He continued to describe the South Korean government’s conception of homelessness as “narrow,” and suggested that, if the government were to extend their definition when recording numbers, the population of homeless in the country could soar to forty times higher than previously estimated. This perspective has merit. The Ministry of Land, Transport, and Infrastructure has confirmed 430,000 unregistered households, many of which fall under the category of jjokbang housing. Jjokbang housing are shantytown communities of unregistered, poorly constructed, poorly maintained housing. With living spaces often smaller than two square meters in size, and with communities of 16-17 people often sharing two pit toilets between them, Tak believes that residents of such communities should also be recorded as homeless by the Korean government. To make clear Tak's perspective, the scale of homelessness in South Korea is not immediately visible because it is hidden within unregistered housing communities such as jjokbang housing, and governmental statistics are inaccurate because the definition used to classify homelessness is excessively narrow.
While the South Korean government statistically conceives of homelessness as archetypal street homelessness, the Institute of Global Homelessness offers a more nuanced definition: “Experiencing homelessness means lacking access to minimally adequate housing.” Importantly, the IGH definition also focuses upon the adequacy of one’s living conditions, and thus includes within its conception of homelessness, “persons living in severely inadequate and insecure housing.” The IGH conceives of homelessness in categories and if applied to South Korea, this IGH classification considers residents of jjokbang housing as “3H” homeless – “People living in non-conventional buildings and temporary structures that are unfit for human habitation.” In a similar manner, the United Nations, unlike the South Korean government, acknowledges that, “Rough sleeping is only one manifestation of homelessness, but not necessarily the most frequent one.”
Governments of countries that have similar unregistered housing communities do consider large swathes of those living within them as homeless. For instance, Brazil is a country that is infamous for having large favela neighborhoods in its cities. In an official UN report, the Brazilian government defines homelessness as “a group that has in common the extreme poverty, broken or weakened family ties and the lack of regular conventional housing, and that uses public places and degraded areas as living space and livelihood, temporarily or permanently.” Neglected housing that is found within favelas is considered by the government as a “degraded area” and thus their tenants are counted amongst the country’s official homelessness statistics. The South Korean government, in comparison, does not define homelessness with an adequately broad scope.
Tak is not alone in his argument that the South Korean government should extend its definition of homelessness. In fact, in 2018 the UN dispatched special rapporteur Leilana Farha to South Korea to investigate adequate housing within the country. Upon her visit, a report provided to her by the Korean NGOs for the Realization of Housing Rights reads,
“After the ratification of the UN International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Korean government received concerns and advice from all the four rounds of deliberation. It was pointed out, among others, that there is not sufficient information about the homeless … Thus, the Korean government should discard the narrow concept of “the homeless, etc.”, and it should redefine the concept and extent of homelessness, and thereby, it should identify the scale and current state of homelessness in the nation.”
Interestingly, just as Tak does, the report emphasizes that the South Korean definition of homelessness is too “narrow.” The UN has stated that “a number of challenges exist with regards to measuring homelessness, including the risk of excluding marginalized groups that are not ‘visibly’ homeless.” After her visit to South Korea and consequent to the NGO report cited here, Farha officially urged the South Korean government to “shift their approach,” to homelessness so that it “meets current human rights standards.” In response to Farha’s indictment the government responded that it “takes note of her recommendations.”
Not only is the government being urged to extend its definition of homelessness but also the mechanism by which South Korean homelessness is ostensibly hidden within inadequate, unregistered housing is also under strain. In recent years, with Seoul expanding radically, jjokbang housing has been destroyed to make way for high rise expansion. Notable examples of this have been near Seoul Station and Yeongdeungpo District. Nonetheless, with the destruction of neighborhoods comes the displacement of their previous residents – UN rapporteur Farha, after her visit to South Korea, said, “I am deeply concerned by the continuation of massive reconstruction projects resulting in the destruction of neighborhoods and displacement of individuals and families.” She continues in this statement to emphasize that the current Korean legal framework for urban redevelopment and reconstruction does not comply with internationally recognised human rights standards and continues to result in forced evictions. With increasing rents in the country and the absence of affordable housing in the form of jjokbang housing, South Korea’s poor are being left with nowhere to turn. Significantly, the average household debt in South Korea has been rapidly increasing in recent years, and now sits higher than any other OECD nation at 163% of net disposable income.
At the beginning of the article it was established that, statistically, there is a paradox as concerns homelessness in South Korea – minimal governmental welfare investment, a burgeoning housing index and comparatively stagnant growth in average yearly salary seem in stark contrast to the low numbers of homelessness recorded by the government. The UN has criticized South Korea’s attitude toward public welfare, and the manner in which the government defines homelessness; with an escalating crisis of household debt amidst soaring, expansive development, the country has unquestionably reached a watershed moment as concerns its approach to the issue of homelessness. It begs the question: what will the next few years bring for the underprivileged in South Korean society and how will their government respond?
