hankyoreh

“After running an optical shop and raising my kids here for 40 years, I know the area like the back of my hand.”

Choi Jeom-su’s breath turned white and seeped from her mask as she spoke to the Hankyoreh’s reporter outside the Dongseon Community Service Center in Seoul’s Seongbuk District on Nov. 30.

Despite a cold snap that saw temperatures hit -8 degrees Celsius, the 61-year-old had a hop in her step as she headed up into the aging hilly neighborhood.

After Dongseon was designated for redevelopment, homeowners left. Older and younger Koreans who live alone took their place.

Kim Chun-seon, 76, another native of Dongseon, joined Choi on her rounds.

“There are a lot of down-and-out tenants here who need us to keep a closer eye on them,” she said.

Toughing their way up steep alleyways hardly wide enough for a small truck to pass through, the two women carefully eyed the mailboxes of the houses packed up in the hills.

Choi and Kim were checking for overflowing mailboxes or ones stuffed with overdue bills. When a mother and daughter were found dead in their home in Seoul’s Sinchon neighborhood in November, a past-due notice showing five months of unpaid electric bills posted outside served as a clue that the household had fallen through the cracks in public benefits.

“Around mid-October I saw a house where there was all this mail piled up, so I checked in with the landlord,” Choi said. “It turned out to just be mail for a tenant who had moved out, but ever since, I’ve always kept an eye on mailboxes.”

As the eyes and ears of the neighborhood, Choi and Kim are lending their talents to Seongbuk District as volunteers with a program tasked with seeking out and identifying members of the community who have fallen on hard times. After a series of tragedies in which families in need were found dead, having never received the welfare or benefits they were entitled to, local governments in Korea have been making use of informal social networks like local residents and yogurt delivery people to help identify families that may be facing a crisis.

While the death of a mother and her two daughters in Suwon in August, the death of a woman from North Korea living alone, and now the death of a mother and daughter in Sinchon in November had all shown warning signs in the form of unpaid utilities, city workers on the ground were unable to offer them the help they needed due to issues such as changes of address.

Choi and Kim stopped their trek when they reached Dongsin Salon at the peak of the hill. Upon entering the hairdresser’s shop, they handed the owner a flier with information about how to report if any of their regular customers are down and out.

Shops frequented by locals like hairdressers and small groceries are being actively used as nexuses for getting out the word about how to report households and individuals in need to those who can help. When the proprietors of such businesses report that regulars have stopped showing up, it can assist the government in identifying crises before they occur.

Notices and stickers with a reporting hotline that have gone up around Seongbuk District over the last two months have already helped the local government identify 21 at-risk households.

One older woman who heard about the number on Dec. 1 said she had sent in a report. “My son in his 50s was struggling with depression after his business went belly-up, and I was afraid he might hurt himself.” The relevant community center paid a visit to the man and offered counseling on the spot.

Yogurt vendors weaved in and out of the streets of Geumho 2(i) and 3(sam) neighborhoods in Seoul’s Seongdong District on Dec. 1 aboard their mobile refrigerators in search of households in need. A yogurt vendor who paid a visit to the low-rise apartment where Park Jeong-sun, 69, lives knocked on Park’s door with a yogurt drink and a pamphlet about emergency numbers for families falling through the cracks.

“Ma’am, your yogurt is here,” she said.

Park, whose only family — a younger sister — lives on Jeju Island, confessed that she “always worried that no one would know if I fell down.” But her fears have been alleviated to a degree thanks to a yogurt vendor who will be paying her regular visits to deliver probiotic drinks and check in on her starting this month.

Seoul’s Seongdong District reached an agreement with HY (formerly Korea Yakult) on Nov. 25 to have 120 of the yogurt vendors check in on at-risk families or be able to connect those in trouble with welfare workers.

An official with the Ministry of Health and Welfare told the Hankyoreh, “Information for around 4.5 million-5 million households in need are obtained nationally every two months, but front-line social workers are only able to visit around 200,000 relatively high-risk [cases] in person.”

The official said that using informal networks would probably make it possible to identify such households more accurately.

Chung Ick-joong, a professor of social welfare at Ewha Womans University, commented, “Those who are struggling can fear the stigma of poverty. They may not feel comfortable asking others for help or not have anyone to turn to.”

“For local residents whose relationships might not go beyond recognizing one another, using the ‘strength of weak ties’ can be more effective in pinpointing those eligible for benefits,” Chung added.

While community members are playing bigger roles in identifying households in need, some say that the government should also expand the professional workforce for dealing with such problems.

Choi Hyun-soo, a research fellow at the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs, said that the government measures taken after the tragedy in Sinchon and other incidents “didn’t include hiring more social workers.”

“Community networks can only be effectively utilized if there are social workers with professional knowledge as well,” Choi said.

By Ko Byung-chan, staff reporter

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