Seoul City Establishes 'Comprehensive Support Task Force for Single-Person Households'... TF Immediately Activated

Mayor Oh Se-hoon's First Pledge... Operated as a Direct Regular Organization in May After Rule Revision
Reorganizing Beneficiary-Centered Projects to Alleviate Five Major Pains: Safety, Housing, Loneliness, etc.

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon is speaking at the "Official Land Price Related Meeting" held at Seoul City Hall on the afternoon of the 18th. / Photo by Moon Ho-nam munonam@

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] The Seoul Metropolitan Government is pushing to establish a dedicated organization to comprehensively and multidimensionally support the 1.3 million single-person households, Mayor Oh Se-hoon's first pledge.

Seoul announced that starting from the 19th, it will immediately activate the ‘Single-Person Household Special Measures Task Force (TF).’ After revising regulations, it will establish the ‘Single-Person Household Special Measures Promotion Team,’ a regular organization directly under the mayor, by May.

Mayor Oh has emphasized that single-person households, which account for 33% of all households in Seoul and are rapidly increasing, have been neglected in policy targets and that support policies have been scattered across different sectors, necessitating comprehensive support. He proposed the ‘Establishment of the Single-Person Household Protection Special Measures Headquarters’ to address the five major hardships of single-person households: safety, illness, poverty, loneliness, and housing issues, as his first pledge.

The number of single-person households in Seoul has increased about 1.5 times over the past 10 years, currently reaching approximately 1.3 million households. They make up 33% of all households, meaning one out of every two households is a single-person household. In contrast, support measures for single-person households have been pursued separately by sectors such as housing, welfare, and safety, limiting comprehensive and multidimensional support tailored to the characteristics of single-person households.

Existing measures for single-person households in Seoul are handled by various departments: the Women and Family Policy Office (women’s safety), the Citizen Health Bureau (illness), the Welfare Policy Office (poverty), and the Housing and Architecture Headquarters (housing). There is only one dedicated staff member responsible for establishing basic plans and conducting surveys on single-person households.

The newly established dedicated organization will serve as a control tower for supporting single-person households. It will combine functions currently dispersed across various offices, restructure existing projects from the perspective of single-person households, and discover new projects to implement demand-tailored initiatives.

Since revising ordinances or regulations is necessary to reorganize and change functions, Seoul plans to start operating the TF immediately to minimize the time required for organizational restructuring and accelerate policy implementation.

The ‘Single-Person Household Special Measures TF’ is led by a Seoul city bureau chief (Kang Seon-seop, Head of the Civil Life Judicial Police Unit) and includes an advisory group composed of experts by field and representatives of beneficiary groups. The TF consists of 17 members: one bureau chief as the leader, one section chief as the deputy leader, and 15 staff members. Kang Seon-seop was appointed as the head of the ‘Single-Person Household Special Measures Promotion Team,’ and Lim Ji-hoon, current head of the Campus Town Revitalization Division, was appointed as the deputy leader.

Kang Seon-seop, head of the Special Measures Promotion Team, is expected to effectively coordinate and oversee the support projects for single-person households, which were previously divided among departments such as the Women and Family Policy Office (women’s safety), Citizen Health Bureau (illness), Welfare Policy Office (poverty), and Housing and Architecture Headquarters (housing), based on his diverse experience in city administration, including roles as Seoul’s Audit Officer and Social Economy Officer. Lim Ji-hoon, deputy leader, has worked for five years in welfare departments such as the Welfare Policy Division and Regional Care Welfare Division, and is expected to enhance execution capabilities based on his high understanding of single-person household policies.

Seoul will analyze the actual conditions of single-person households in detail and set the major policy directions through advisory group meetings. It will review and adjust projects currently scattered across various offices to lay the foundation for sector-specific special measures. Cooperation systems will be established not only with related city departments and affiliated organizations but also with 25 autonomous districts and related agencies such as the police.

The regular organization, the ‘Single-Person Household Special Measures Promotion Team,’ will be launched on a larger scale than the TF. As the main control tower for policy, it will actively develop representative and new projects and proceed with rapid implementation. The ‘Single-Person Household Special Measures Promotion Team’ will consist of two divisions (section chief level), six teams, and a total of 32 members.

Based on demand surveys of single-person households, Seoul plans to sequentially announce demand-tailored policies to resolve the five major areas: safety, illness, poverty, loneliness, and housing. It will also closely monitor the progress of each project and assess citizen satisfaction to ensure continuous feedback.

Mayor Oh said, "We will actively address the five major hardships faced by citizens living alone who experience inconvenience and anxiety," adding, "We will improve the current situation where policies for single-person households, a major social component rapidly increasing in number, fail to keep pace with demographic and sociological changes, thereby enhancing the execution power of support for single-person households."