The Anthropology of Urban Spaces: Homelessness in Seoul, AN3100

This essay delves into the critical issue of homelessness in Seoul, South Korea, with a particular focus on its impact on the aging population. It explores the interconnectedness of aging, poverty, and homelessness, highlighting the challenges faced by elderly individuals in securing and maintaining adequate housing. The essay examines the role of the housing market, urban planning, and government initiatives in addressing the issue, including the provision of gosiwon and job creation programs. It analyzes various factors contributing to homelessness, such as debt, alcoholism, and divorce, while also discussing theoretical frameworks like the dynamic theory of urban structure and the concentric zone theory. The essay concludes by assessing the effectiveness of current strategies and proposing potential solutions to improve the living conditions of homeless individuals and reintegrate them into the community, emphasizing the need for innovative housing designs and comprehensive support systems.

Running head: HOMELESSNESS SEOUL
HOMELESSNESS SEOUL
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

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Introduction:
The aim of this paper is to discuss homelessness as tremendously effective social curse
that is harming the aging population of any country in an unfortunate manner. Homelessness has
been defined as living in a place below minimum standard or lacking secure tenure. The people
who to live on the streets or move between the temporary Shelters and leave in private boarding
houses without any security of tenure or private rooms can be categorized as homeless. The
primary homelessness refers to the people living in the streets stations and Hospital premises and
people living in temporary shelters are recorded as to have the secondary homelessness. These
people are unable to acquire as well as maintain the regular secured and safe housing due to their
understudy income. Here poverty and homelessness are interconnected. The trend of
homelessness is seen in the big cities of the world. As compared to the general population the
people who are actually homeless can experience high rate of adverse mental and physical
outcomes that lead them to have vulnerable health conditions associated with climate change.
Along with poverty is another reason for homelessness. this is due to the fact that infrastructure
of housing are not bothering about the older population groups rather attracting the young
couples and families due to their ability of buying those properties.
Proper planning and implementation of the urban space can eliminate the issues of
homelessness among the poor and aged people in the city of Seoul.
Issues of Aging and homelessness:
Aging and homelessness are interconnected but has been neglected in Literature. There is
an extensive as function that the population cannot be homeless. The aging population suffering
for homelessness, is higher in US, Japan, Australia and United Kingdom. In the case of South

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Korea ageing homelessness has become a threat for the local government. Homeless people in
the city of Seoul, 54.6 years old on the average and they have started living in the temporary
Shelters or streets at their age of 42.3 (Koreatimes.co.kr 2019). The Seoul Metropolitan
government, Seoul Association of Institutes for the Homeless announced and Seoul welfare
Foundation the joint study has resulted in finding the data that these aged people are homeless
for more than 10 years on average (Koreatimes.co.kr. 2019). There are various reasons of aged
homelessness and the data has revealed that 24% of Egypt population suffering due to
homelessness have snow bowling debt. This had triggered bankruptcy or bad credit and lose their
homes. Along with poverty or bankruptcy the reasons like alcoholism and divorce have a large
part 2B causes of homelessness of these people. In the survey of homeless people 12.8% has
shown the divorce cause and 11.1% alcoholism as their own reasons for homelessness
(Koreatimes.co.kr. 2019).

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Figure 1. Poverty rate in South Korea
(Source: Asia.nikkei.com 2019)
Proposed strategies:
The local government of the city Seoul has taken a closer look in this problem of
homelessness and stated that the number of homeless people is on a steady decline since 2013
when the population was 4505 (Koreatimes.co.kr 2019). Based on this survey the government
has established comprehensive plans to help 30 per cent of these homeless people get back there
home by 2023. There are different plans hitting different targets by the desired or set time. One
of these proposed strategies of the government is related to providing gosiwon. This is a low cost
style for housing and will help those who have failed to get along with others in the Shelters or

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leave on the streets. The local government of the city has plan to create more than thousand part
time and full time jobs in the public sectors so that the homelessness issue in the city of Seoul
can be eliminated. The government is taking effective measures to help these aged homeless
people to reintegrate into the community for which focussing upon the infrastructure
development is important.
Current housing systems have shown effective capability to solve homelessness issue in
different parts of the world. Along with increased homelessness among people in different
megacities especially among the older citizens the housing market has become a solution. For
facing this issue the Government of the country along with the local ones have started to invest
upon the housing market and Enid giving responsibility to find housing solutions for the
homeless elderly people. There are different projects to address the needs of the most vulnerable
community that is the elderly homeless people. Building as well as designing solutions and
management principles have gone hand in hand for creating successful place for these elderly
homeless people. some of the largest cities of Asia which do not have capacity to bear the
pressure of population exceeding day by day are taking help of innovative design building for
ending the issue of inflation leading to homelessness . In the study of Kim and Chun (2014) it
has been clarified that economic growth and income has direct correlation with the income of the
elderly people who are becoming suppressed by the problem of homelessness and ailment.

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Figure 2. Elderly homeless people
(Source: Flickr.com 2019)
Housing market in Seoul:
However the economic prosperity in terms of economy of the country has taken the GDP
in the higher position and making the government invest more in developing new designs for
building places for this elderly homeless people living in the streets and Temporary Shelters. The
homelessness of aged people in Seoul has been pointed out to be the result of increasing price of
housing market. In the competition the younger generations are pushing the aged people away
and they are not being able to afford convenient houses but start to live in deplorable conditions.
The rising of aging population in the City is not considered by the real estate and other housing
market. The government is therefore showing more importance to make immediate policies

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regarding elderly housing as well as rental housing policies. This is creating a positive effect
upon the structure of population on the basis of aging demography. As the housing market is not
stagnant but constantly changing for meeting the demands of the target customers therefore
innovation is being promoted. The government is finding way to use unusable lands to transform
them into two highly efficient innovative house designs so that the elderly people get shelter to
stay and get proper facilities like employment and healthcare.
According to the study by Ha (2004), the economic growth of the country e of South
Korea has supported the growth of housing benefits to the population in the major cities like
Seoul. The government has contributed in the housing renewal projects for the Welfare of the
people so that the community can be developed. The growth of equal housing elevation and
eliminating problem of the low income groups to avail house and other facilities have been
strategist in the new policies of the government. The actual residents who were scattered due to
their debt in the banks and indirectly to the government lost their home at the age of 40 or more.
This is the reason why the homelessness has been reduced to 30% in the last 10 years. This is
proving the way that the government both state and local depending upon the infrastructure
Innovation and designing of effective houses for the homeless aged citizens in the cities. The
government initiative for structural change in the city of Seoul aims to create suitable
environment for the residents mainly the major portion of the society and open with
compounding element after years of Living as homeless with the other age related disabilities. In
order to meet the demand of accommodation the building design wanted to be respond to the
challenging behavior as well as fierce independence or trust. In some cases it has been found that
the elderly persons were house in the general shelters for the homeless so that the age related
support can be built but this type of houses could not give support to these aged people leading

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them to die premature death. The need for innovation therefore been seen in this aspect so that
the elderly homeless people can avail this similar facilities provided by the government like all
other elderly residence in the city of Seoul. The solutions like emergency services ambulance
police and Hospital beds are the pressing concern for this aging homeless people infrastructure is
needed to be e innovative to accommodate all these facilities within the housing complex.
Theories of urban spaces:
The dynamic theory of urban structure by Colby refers to the urban planning for the
citizens of different communities and economic group. Here the city has been divided into two
parts centripetal and centrifugal. The centripetal forces bring the citizens towards more central
area of the city and the centrifugal process pushes away the population towards the outer places
like in the outskirts of the city (Dear & Scott, 2018). Now the city if uses the centrifugal proves
can get scope to give accommodation to the aged homeless people. Similarly according to the
Concentric Zone theory, there are certain zones divided based on the contribution to the
economy. In this way there are 5 zones divided. In Zone 1. The central business district is
situated. In zone 2 the traditional area mainly residential, zone 3 is for the houses of working
men, zone 4 will be the middle class residents and zone 5 is for the most economically active
residents going to work (Dear & Scott, 2018).

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Figure 3. Poverty among aged in South Korea
(Source: Www.upi.com. 2019)
The factor of residential subsidies provided by the Metropolitan government of Seoul has
supported hundreds of homeless people to ensure facilities of residential houses. the facilities of
residential subsidy gets more support when the government arranges process of finding jobs in
the private and public sectors to the aging population living as homeless in the streets of Seoul
(English.hani.co.kr 2019). In addition to this the health issues have been eliminated through the
basic livelihood benefits by the government and it has considered these health problems of the
ageing population marked as homeless to be the reason of not finding job. The city government
has also helped the elderly homeless people to renew their resident’s registration and sign up for
the disability assistant. By providing medical help covered transportation cost to get into the job

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interviews and going to the work to meet daily necessities are also arranged by the government
(English.hani.co.kr 2019). Discontinuous assistance by the government of South Korea and the
local government of the city of Seoul has laid the number of homeless people in the city to be
reduced by 30% over the last 6 years (Kim & Chun, 2014). The number of homeless aged people
in the streets who are not still receiving assistance from the government to have temporary
Shelters are seen to be troublesome to adjust to communal living provided with temporary
residence as well as jobs. These people are unwilling to go back to their temporary Shelters
eliminating any possibility to success the plan for helping them return to society in the near
future. The self-sufficiency assistance section of the city relates this factor to be problematic
behavior among the aged homeless people but the government is persistent in reaching these
people as benevolently as possible.
According to the theory mentioned in the “Walking in the City" by de Certeau, any type
of concept regarding "the city" generated by strategies of the city corporations, governments and
the other institutional bodies describe the city to be a unified whole. These government bodies
produce the things like maps of the cities and other planning therefore they are the responsible
persons to understand the needs of the people residing there. The production of the urban spaces
are fully dependable upon the everyday practices of the inhabitants. Similarly Benjamin has
travelled in different urban spaces though the eyes of Flaneur to whom urban space is
representative of modernity.
The paper by Kim, Han and O'Connor (2015), has referred to the ageing homelessness
problem to have Global perspectives. The study has referred to many mega cities around the
world who are coming under the limelight for having Global issue of homelessness. The
worldwide distribution of capitals, migration and resources on the space have been shown to

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have connection with the aged homelessness in Seoul. To develop a perfect strategy to eliminate
aged homelessness through infrastructural change, some of the most important factors have been
analyzed. All of these five factors are somehow related to the foreign housing Investments. The
location and origin of these foreign investment, preferred location in the city, geographical
results of this foreign housing investment the main role of ethnic connectivity in the investment
process and main investors are the factors relating the implementation of strategies regarding
change of infrastructure (Koreatimes.co.kr 2019). The foreign investors here are the people
owning houses in the city of Seoul mainly the Koreans living in abroad. in this case the
international stakeholders could have been gaining more support from the government because
of the amount of money they are going to invest in this housing market of South Korea but the
covariance living in Abroad have emotional and cultural connectivity with the communities
therefore transaction of information and dependence upon their fund will be more effective. They
are not mere investors but also have perfect understanding of the location and the expectation of
these homeless people living in the streets of the country or city (Ki-hyoung, 2019). This is the
reason why foreign investment in the housing market in South Korea have become a solution for
mitigating the issue of aging homelessness. In addition to this the location of the housing also
has a link with the socio-cultural influence of foreign housing investment in the housing scenario
of Seoul. This in one hand will improve the situation of the elderly homeless people living in the
streets and Temporary houses in the city and improve the foreign connection and relationship
with Korea.
The right to adequate housing is the factor that pushes the government to attract
investment in the housing market. The violence issues that is one of the most important by
product of homelessness leading aged people to die on streets is affecting the law and order and

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morality of the society as a whole. In the present time from 2018 to 2019 the government
therefore has taken initiative to build 2 million houses for the homeless people scattered in
different parts of the city (Feather, 2019). It will be implemented not only in the biggest cities of
the country but also show the developing cities having the similar problem of homelessness. The
governments have sought different supply based solutions for mitigating the growing housing
deficient. This intervention exceeded its objective as the foreign investment and private sector
contribution went hand in hand. The comparative understanding of housing drive helps more
access to adequate housing in the cities for the people living in impoverished conditions
(Feather, 2019). This program has repositioned the countries urban housing market with a greater
access to the affordable housing in the cities for vulnerable like aged homeless people and lower
income group who tend to lose their home for bankruptcy and other economic related issues
(Feather, 2019). These are the reasons why South Korea has become one of the most attractive
markets for foreign housing investment where there is a direct support of the Government of the
state as well as local cities.
Conclusion:
Therefore it can be concluded that it the issue of homelessness in South Korea has gained
focus due to the severity and impending threat. Along with the homelessness issue in the US and
UK, this Asian country has got a place in the index. Among the homeless population the number
of aged people is increasing which is threatening the balance in the society E and economy. Most
of the ageing homeless people are suffering from age related diseases and bankruptcy which are
preventing them to get proper support from their family members. After the economic revolution
in South Korea the government has taken a great part in reducing homelessness in the cities like
Seoul and found out different strategies to eliminate this issue from the society. The foreign

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investment in the housing market of South Korea has supported positively e in eliminating
homelessness issue in a great deal. Mainly the Welfare mentality of the government it is driving
this issue to be solved in the near future.

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