“2022
Election Special Series: Listen to Our Voices” ② Youth Housing Insecurity
By Jisu
Published Jan. 3, 2022
Translated by Anastasia Traynin
There are far too many real estate listings that barely pass for housing.
I’m an activist in
the civic organization Min Snail Union. I counsel and educate youth about
housing, let them know the indispensable commonsense A to Zs when looking for a
place to live, give talks on preventing and responding to conflicts with real
estate agencies and landlords, and conduct site visits for youth facing
problems with their housing.
 |
| Summer 2021. A photo taken during a Min Snail Union survey of a Seoul university-area residential neighborhood. Some may say they are sick and tired of the “hell trifecta” of basement apartments, rooftop rooms, and gosiwons (complexes of very small single rooms with shared kitchens and often shared bathroom facilities), but these three types of residences remain important for youth housing. When young people move out on their own for the first time, many start with substandard housing and move on to more of the same. © Min Snail Union |
Houses That Aren’t Homes
One young person got
a complaint from their next-door neighbor for doing yoga at home. The reason
was the sound of their breathing was too loud. Being able to hear coughing and
talking from next door is an all-too-familiar story for young people living in
crowded one-person housing areas.
These kinds of
houses are highly likely to be structures illegally split into rental rooms.
Also referred to as “illegal structures,” I will simply call these houses “bad
housing” [bullyang jugeo], for the purpose of comparing them with bad
food. There are regulations for people selling bad food, but there are none for
those listing or brokering bad housing. People can’t sell moldy food, but there’s
nothing stopping them from selling moldy houses.
In this kind of
environment, there are too many houses infested with mold and lacking
insulation from cold, heat, and noise. Despite these issues, following the
housing market’s sharply rising price curve, poor-quality housing is also
becoming more expensive. Too many houses that can hardly be called houses are
being built, and the rental market leaves them as is, citing them as a
necessary evil and a customary practice.
Every time Min
Snail Union activists go out to survey illegal housing structures, we joke that
“four out of five studio apartment buildings break the law.” In fact, during a
2020 sample survey of special administrative regions, more than 78% of houses
were found to be in violation of housing laws. However, due to a lack of
administrative personnel and budget, these areas do not all face crackdowns.
Taken as a matter of course in the market and protected by government, substandard housing currently remains
the only option for those who can only pay a small amount for housing.
Not only is the environment in this housing bad, but its financial
situation is also unstable. There are many places that are turned down for rental deposit payment
protection insurance, but no other safety measures are being put in place. Even though the housing rental market is rightfully called a lawless
area, the situation continues to prevail.
 |
| Min Snail Union is acting in solidarity with the 2022 Presidential Election Youth Network. We are participating in the campaign of writing remarks aimed at the presidential candidates and uploading them on social media. © Jisu |
Housing Insecurity
of Young Women Living Alone in Rental Housing
There are those
who can’t even choose poor substandard housing. In South Korea, where bad food
is unacceptable but bad housing is tolerated, there is no language to pinpoint
the housing insecurity of youth who can’t even make this choice. I will discuss
this through the lens of “housing safety,” the phrase everyone is using these
days.
When youth need
and desire to live on their own due to conflict with their families but can’t get
a gosiwon room or studio apartment, the main reasons are housing cost and safety,
connected like needle and thread. Most of those with no advance money who can
only afford a low deposit and rent have no choice but to live in very bad
housing environments, which is linked with the issue of safety. Gender is also
a big limiting factor for those who fail to make their longing to live on their
own a reality.
In the current
housing rental market, some real estate agencies tell prospective young female tenants,
“Anyway, young women don’t go for dirty, half-basement, unsafe places, so
there’s no need to show you those,” effectively standardizing a price hike.
There are also many cases in which women feel unsafe in privately rented single and multi-family housing units because of the lack of a security window grille, and although the landlord refuses to install one, the tenant is unable to use this as a reason to break the lease. Furthermore, cases of rudeness and discriminatory situations such as the uncomfortable atmosphere in common areas that women with short haircuts can face while living in gosiwons [due to male tenants who take the hairstyle to be a sign of feminism, which they hate] or, or women being pestered with offers to be set up on blind dates, also fall under “housing insecurity.”
Yet this kind of
housing insecurity faced by young women tenants has always been ignored by
housing policies.
Stalking,
Burglary, and Other Crimes as a “Housing Safety” Issue
Min Snail Union is
also calling for countermeasures and housing policy to address crimes committed
in residential areas such as stalking and burglary.
 |
| Fall 2021. A press conference on crimes in residential areas, held jointly with Justice Party National Assembly member Jang Hye-young. © Min Snail Union |
Although South Korea’s “minimum housing standards” clearly
specify the minimal criteria for housing, their scope is very narrow. Set by
the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport, the minimum housing standards
merely state that the living area for one person, including a kitchen, a
bedroom, and a bathroom, must be at least 14 square meters (4.2 pyeong). That’s
it. But gosiwons and other “non-housing dwellings” are exempt even from that. With
the creation of this exception to the minimum housing standard in order to
increase the urban housing supply, South Korean society has sided with private
businesses to make even more housing substandard.
The Basic Housing Act enacted in 2015 clearly states
that housing must maintain minimum standards of appropriateness according to
changing socioeconomic conditions, and the government must create inducive
housing standards and strive to reduce the number of households not meeting the
criteria. However, there has yet to be any announcement of inducive
housing standards.
Given the
extremely loose state of minimum housing standards, the safety problem is more
easily neglected. Even while many people say that in terms of
safety, housing policy should go beyond services that
ensure women can walk home safely [such as the “Safe Back Home Scouts” program
described here], the reason for
the continued policy limits is exactly the fact that the standard for proper
housing is so narrowly regulated.
Considering social
circumstances, in order to figure out safety issues implicated within the
housing environment, the minimum housing standards must be reformed. Not only
structural and sanitation issues but also safety problems must be taken into
account, and crimes such as stalking, burglary and the resulting anxiety faced
by residents are essential elements that must be included in all housing
surveys.
Upgrade the
Minimum Housing Standard and Secure Livable Housing
There are very few
presidential candidates addressing the issue of reforming the minimum housing
standards. Now is the time for us to ask of the candidates: What do you
consider livable housing, and with so many bad residences flying under the
radar, how will you find and change them?
The minimum
housing standards provision needs to be sharply expanded. Basically, we need to
improve the standards to ensure that housing meets structural requirements and
is functional in terms of sanitation and safety. In addition, considering the
increasingly diverse types of housing, standards should be set that can be
applied to other places of residence, such as gosiwons. It is also necessary to
improve the system to systematically establish housing support policies for
tenants who are already living in substandard housing.
In order to create
a society where everyone can live independently in adequate housing, we need to
change bad housing conditions and define housing safety as a major factor in
housing insecurity, and reflect these goals in policies to achieve change. I wonder how many of the presidential candidates have
heard the stories about these problems. I hope they will listen to the voices
of those of us who live in bad housing and whose housing security is being
violated. Because our lives don't disappear when they turn a blind eye to us,
or erase us from print.
Writer Bio: Jisu thinks a lot about living a long time in
a nice, livable house with her cat. She wants to fight against all the
discrimination that happens related to housing.
*Original article: https://ildaro.com/9239
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