Yangcheon-gu, Public and Private Sectors Join Hands to Support Food, Clothing, and Shelter for 100 Households in Welfare Blind Spots

(Sarangbat Association) Support, District Office · Yangcheon Sarang Welfare Foundation · Welfare Center Collaboration Focused Support for 100 At-Risk Households... Customized Welfare Services Including Clothing Laundry, Side Dish Provision, Pest Control, and Housing Vulnerability Assistance

A single parent in their 40s, Mr. A, living in Sinwol 6-dong, Yangcheon-gu, is raising two children in middle and high school while living as a near-poverty household. Especially, since he covers living and education expenses through labor activities, he was very worried about the burden of expensive winter clothes laundry costs. However, thanks to the help of the local community welfare center conducting the Warm Food, Clothing, and Shelter Public-Private Partnership Project with Yangcheon-gu, he was able to ease his worries about laundry expenses.

To provide broader support to residents in welfare blind spots who need help, Yangcheon-gu (Mayor Lee Gi-jae) announced that, with sponsorship from the nonprofit organization Together Love Field, it will expand the ‘Warm Food, Clothing, and Shelter Support Project’ to the entire district by November, led by the Yangcheon Love Welfare Foundation along with five centers including Mokdong Comprehensive Social Welfare Center.

This project is meaningful in that it embraces residents in welfare blind spots who do not receive benefits because they exceed the baseline of the ‘Support Project for Food, Clothing, and Shelter for Vulnerable Groups’ led by the district. It focuses on supporting 100 high-risk households among food, clothing, and shelter crisis households under 120% of the median income, including single-person households, single-parent households, and elderly households, and aims to establish a ‘public-private partnership-based social safety net’ that tightly fills care gaps through continuous monitoring.

In particular, local community welfare centers are receiving great responses by providing customized food, clothing, and shelter services tailored to each area’s situation and demand. First, Mokdong Comprehensive Social Welfare Center is promoting practical, life-oriented training such as ‘Laundry Day Alone,’ where single-person households in Mok 1-4 dong learn how to use unmanned laundromats, and ‘Becoming a Regular at Unmanned Food Stores and Cooking,’ where they purchase and cook meal kits through unmanned kiosk education.

Sinmok Comprehensive Social Welfare Center runs the ‘Sharing Prepared Side Dishes’ project, delivering side dishes made directly by volunteers to support balanced diets for middle-aged single-person households in Sinjeong 2 and 7 dong. Sinwol Comprehensive Social Welfare Center operates ‘Fluffy Day,’ a winter clothing laundry service for single-parent families in Sinwol 2 and 6 dong and Sinjeong 3 dong, and ‘Energetic and Hopeful Our Neighborhood,’ which provides side dishes through market side dish stores and special meals in collaboration with volunteer camps.

Sinjeong Comprehensive Social Welfare Center carries out the ‘Clean Home’ project for elderly households in housing vulnerability in Sinjeong 1, 4, and 6 dong. It provides pest control services in cooperation with pest control companies, repairs residential convenience facilities linked with home repair volunteer groups, and supports seasonal bedding and other residential supplies. Hanbit Comprehensive Social Welfare Center promotes the ‘Seasonal Safe Housing Circle House’ project for elderly households in housing vulnerability in Sinwol 1, 3, 4, 5, and 7 dong. It installs insect screens that block fine dust, provides pest control services, fire prevention education, and household fire extinguishing supplies.

The sponsor of this project, Together Love Field, is a non-governmental organization with special consultative status at the United Nations Economic and Social Council and has been active as a nonprofit organization for 38 years. Last Chuseok, it supported 300 low-income households in Yangcheon-gu with food kits worth 21 million KRW. In November, it signed the ‘Love Sharing Project’ agreement with Yangcheon-gu Office and Yangcheon Love Welfare Foundation, and based on this, donated 25 million KRW to the foundation in April this year. This served as an opportunity to expand the ‘Public-Private Partnership Warm Food, Clothing, and Shelter Support Project’ to the entire district.

Lee Gi-jae, Mayor of Yangcheon-gu, said, “I deeply appreciate that public and private sectors can cooperate to embrace welfare blind spots more broadly, and I believe this cooperation will be the driving force to make our Yangcheon-gu a warmer and better community to live in.” He added, “We will continue to walk warmly with neighbors in need and do our best to create a happy local community for all.”

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