Geumcheon-gu Begins Construction of Welfare Facility and Shared Home Complex (Senior Welfare Housing)

[Seoul District News] Geumcheon-gu to Hold Groundbreaking Ceremony for Welfare Facility and Shared Home Complex (Senior Welfare Housing) with LH at Doksan Jugong 13 Complex on 14th at 11 AM... Gangbuk-gu Provides Safety Devices to Housing Vulnerable Groups... Gangseo-gu Collects Oxygen Saturation Monitors for High-Risk Groups... Yeongdeungpo-gu Launches ‘Environment Keeper Job Project’ Supporting Independence of People with Developmental Disabilities

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Jong-il] Geumcheon-gu (Mayor Yoo Seong-hoon) will hold a groundbreaking ceremony at 11 a.m. on the 14th within Doksan Jugong Complex 13 in cooperation with Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH) for the construction of a welfare facility and communal home complex (senior welfare housing).

On this day, Geumcheon-gu plans to explain the progress of the project, design details, and construction process to residents, followed by a tape-cutting ceremony and a safety prayer event.

The welfare facility and communal home (senior welfare housing) will be built within Doksan Complex 13 in Geumcheon-gu, spanning from one basement floor to seven above-ground floors, with a total floor area of 2,430㎡. Construction will begin this month and is scheduled for completion in 2023.

The first floor will house the Doksan 1-dong Resident Center civil service branch handling welfare and administrative tasks; the second and third floors will provide chronic disease prevention management and health care services as a health clinic; the fourth and fifth floors will be a daycare center; and the sixth and seventh floors will contain demand-tailored public rental housing.

Yoo Seong-hoon, Mayor of Geumcheon-gu, said, “Once the welfare facility and communal home complex is completed, local residents such as the elderly and disabled will be able to conveniently use the resident center and receive public medical and welfare services in a one-stop manner, which is expected to improve their quality of life.”

Gangbuk-gu (Mayor Park Gyeom-su) is promoting the ‘Safety Equipment Support Project’ to provide safety devices such as home CCTV and portable emergency bells to vulnerable groups in residential safety.

The district announced that the project will proceed in two areas: ‘Safety Home Set Support for Single-Person Households’ and ‘Emergency Support for Stalking Crime Victim Prevention.’

First, the ‘Safety Home Set Support for Single-Person Households’ provides support for ▲double lock on the front door (mandatory) ▲portable emergency bell (mandatory) ▲home CCTV (optional) ▲window locks (optional).

The support targets vulnerable groups in residential safety, including women living alone, single-parent mother households, and male single-person households who are crime victims residing in Gangbuk-gu. The district plans to consider housing type and rental deposit when providing support.

The ‘Emergency Support for Stalking Crime Victim Prevention’ provides ▲outdoor security smart doorbell (mandatory) ▲home CCTV (mandatory) ▲door opening sensor (optional) ▲police whistle (optional).

Any resident of Gangbuk-gu can apply, but priority will be given to those registered as personal protection targets due to stalking or those selected by Gangbuk Police Station as needing support due to reported sexual crime incidents.

The district will recruit local women’s organizations, non-profit organizations, and corporate businesses to participate in the safety equipment support project from the 7th to the 22nd and plans to provide support in May.

Park Gyeom-su, Mayor of Gangbuk-gu, said, “Through this project, we will contribute to women’s safety and gender equality,” adding, “We will strive to create a safe residential environment so that Gangbuk-gu can become an even better city to live in.”

Seoul Gangseo-gu (Mayor Noh Hyun-song) has actively launched a campaign to find ‘oxygen saturation meters,’ which are necessary but currently in short supply for elderly or severely ill COVID-19 confirmed patients.

An oxygen saturation meter is a device that measures the amount of oxygen in the blood to determine whether oxygen is being properly supplied to the body. It is especially essential medical equipment for confirmed patients aged 60 or older or those with severe illnesses.

From October last year to February this year, the device was supplied free of charge as part of a health management kit to patients receiving home treatment for COVID-19, and afterward, it has been supplied only to those under intensive care. However, as the number of intensive care patients has surged, supply difficulties have arisen.

Although the number of COVID-19 confirmed cases has recently passed its peak and is decreasing, the proportion of confirmed patients aged 60 and over is on the rise, and with the easing of social distancing due to the post-Omicron transition, the risk of infection may relatively increase.

Therefore, to address the shortage of oxygen saturation meters, the district is conducting the ‘Sanpodo-ssi (Oxygen Saturation Meter) Finding’ campaign to collect unused devices from homes and supply them to those in need under intensive care.

Since March, the district has been sending individual text messages to those who have completed home treatment isolation to recover devices and has installed dedicated collection boxes at community service centers to encourage voluntary returns from residents.

However, the recovery rate of oxygen saturation meters remains low. Although more than 10,500 devices were supplied to home treatment patients from October last year to February this year, only 1,531 devices have been returned so far, resulting in a recovery rate of just 14.6%.

To increase the recovery rate, the district is continuously promoting the campaign through community service centers, the Gangseo-gu Volunteer Center, as well as online via the website and social media.

Those wishing to participate in this campaign can place their oxygen saturation meter in a zipper bag and drop it into the dedicated collection box at the nearest community service center.

Collected devices will undergo disinfection and performance inspection by specialized companies, be repackaged, and then distributed to those in need such as COVID-19 intensive care patients.

A district official said, “Due to the increase in COVID-19 intensive care patients, oxygen saturation meters are in great shortage,” adding, “We thank residents who return devices for neighbors in need and ask for active participation in this campaign to overcome the crisis.”

Yeongdeungpo-gu (Mayor Chae Hyun-il) announced that it will promote the ‘Environmental Keeper Job Project’ to guarantee the right of people with developmental disabilities to work as economic agents and to participate in ecological and cultural conservation activities.

As of April 2022, there are 14,499 registered disabled persons in Yeongdeungpo-gu. Among them, 1,114 are people with developmental disabilities (intellectual and autism spectrum disorders), accounting for less than 8% of all disabled persons, but most have severe disabilities making employment in the general labor market difficult.

Accordingly, the district planned the ‘Environmental Keeper Job Project’ to provide customized new job types for people with developmental disabilities, ensuring stable income and expanding opportunities for social participation.

The environmental keepers selected last March completed three weeks of on-site training and were officially hired on April 11 to begin full-scale activities. Going forward, they will engage in various environmental protection activities such as ▲ecological environment management ▲promotion of Saetgang River awareness ▲climate crisis response campaigns and awareness improvement education.

The district expects that through environmental keeper activities, people with developmental disabilities will experience improved social belonging and life satisfaction, and their participation in social contribution activities beyond economic roles will bring positive changes to the local community.

In the future, the district plans to make various efforts to create quality jobs for disabled persons vulnerable to employment. It aims to actively utilize community resources to provide opportunities for vocational life and social participation and help them enter competitive markets in various fields.

Chae Hyun-il, Mayor of Yeongdeungpo-gu, said, “For disabled persons to overcome discrimination and prejudice and stand as members of our society, the community must actively engage in creating jobs,” adding, “We will strive for a transparent Yeongdeungpo where disabled and non-disabled people live well together.”