Cold Wave Crisis... Ulsan City Identifies 'Blind Spots' for Heating Cost Support

Additional Heating Cost Support for Vulnerable Groups Until February 10

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Kim Yong-woo] Ulsan City is expanding support for socially vulnerable groups in response to the record-breaking cold wave.

The city has decided to take the lead in identifying and assisting crisis households in the welfare blind spots, where economic burdens have increased due to rising heating costs.

To this end, Ulsan City has formed a "Cold Wave Response Crisis Household Identification Task Force" consisting of 20 members in 3 teams, led by the Director of the Welfare and Women’s Bureau, to identify and support housing-vulnerable households and energy-poor groups until February 10.

As a support measure, additional heating costs will be provided to vulnerable facilities such as social welfare institutions.

By February, approximately 150 million KRW in additional operating expenses will be provided to 252 social welfare facilities in the Ulsan area to be used for heating costs.

Among them, for residential facilities, those with a capacity of 50 or fewer will receive an additional 300,000 KRW, and those exceeding 100 will receive 1 million KRW in operating expenses, while usage facilities will receive a uniform support of 300,000 KRW.

For regional children’s centers, in addition to heating cost support for social welfare facilities, public utility fees will also be additionally supported. To ensure children can spend a warm winter, 57 regional children’s centers will receive an additional 100,000 KRW per center per month for electricity, gas, water, and other heating-related fees.

Efforts will also be made to encourage the use of energy vouchers provided to vulnerable groups.

Ulsan City has so far supported energy vouchers to about 17,000 socially vulnerable households. In line with the government’s doubling of the voucher amount (from 152,000 KRW to 304,000 KRW), the city plans to actively promote voucher application and usage through surveys of households that have not applied or have low usage, and through one-on-one face-to-face, phone, mail, and text communications.

Additionally, from January 27 to February 10, a focused period for identifying crisis households has been set to actively discover welfare blind spot targets vulnerable to the cold wave.

Based on big data, the plan is to proactively identify and support crisis households through honorary social welfare officers, community leaders, and local social security councils.

Furthermore, special self-inspections will be conducted on 132 social welfare residential facilities vulnerable to the cold wave to check safety regarding fire, electricity, gas, and facilities in preparation for winter natural disasters. Patrols will be conducted for homeless people vulnerable to the winter cold, and winter supplies such as clothing and hand warmers will be provided.