LH, Full Effort to Support Housing Stability for 'Bohojongryo Children'... 6,000 Units to be Supplied by Next Year

Providing Homes for 1,258 Youths Aging Out of Care Last Year
Active Demand Discovery Through U-Start Counseling Center
Partnership with NEPS... Support for Furniture Including Dining Tables, Desks, and Chairs
Support Expanded to Include Youth Leaving Shelters

[Asia Economy Reporter Kangwook Cho] Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH) announced on the 7th that it will actively implement government policies such as ‘guaranteeing children’s housing rights’ through the provision of rental housing and various self-reliance supports, and will focus on efforts to stabilize housing and facilitate smooth social settlement for protection-exited children this year as well, following last year.

As the harsh reality of ‘protection-exited children’ who must leave care facilities and become independent at the age of 18 with only a small amount of self-reliance settlement funds and allowances has emerged as a social issue, LH has made multifaceted efforts to alleviate their housing insecurity and support smooth social settlement.

First, to provide the most essential ‘housing stability’ for children who have left facilities, LH supplies purchased and jeonse rental housing that can be occupied for up to 20 years at affordable rents, ensuring long-term stable residence. For purchased rental housing, the deposit is 1 million KRW and the monthly rent is about 40% of the surrounding market price, while jeonse rental housing supports up to 120 million KRW.

In particular, last year, reflecting the demand of protection-exited children, LH expanded the types of rental housing to include newly constructed rental housing, and together with the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, revised related laws to establish priority supply criteria, enabling prompt housing support.

As a result of these efforts, 1,258 protection-exited children settled into new homes provided by LH over the past year, laying the foundation for a new start.

Additionally, to ensure that no one misses out on housing support due to lack of awareness of related systems, LH opened the dedicated call center for protection-exited children, the ‘Youth+Strat Counseling Center,’ last year and actively sought to identify demand.

The ‘Youth+Strat Counseling Center,’ named to mean ‘supporting the independence of protection-exited children taking their first step into society,’ provides various services in a one-stop manner, including △rental housing support consultation △tenant recruitment plans △application eligibility and required documents △housing benefit guidance. It also published a ‘Housing Welfare Project Guide in Comics’ to improve accessibility and understanding of housing support systems for young people.

Starting this year, LH will promote not only simple housing provision but also improvements in the housing environment. To this end, LH signed an agreement with furniture company Neps Co., Ltd. to provide over 1,000 pieces of furniture such as dining tables, desks, and chairs, along with storage and interior information services, to protection-exited children moving into LH rental housing.

LH plans to continuously expand housing and service support and supply 6,000 customized public rental housing units for protection-exited children by next year, and also plans to expand the support target to include ‘youth shelter exitees.’

An LH official said, “We will continue to expand the provision of rental housing and various support projects for the growth and independence of protection-exited children, who are the future talents of our society.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.