This image provided by Yonhap News TV shows single-member households (L and R) and a married couple (C).
SEOUL, Jan. 18 (Korea Bizwire) — The Seoul city government said Tuesday it will spend over 5.5 trillion won (US$4.6 billion) over the next five years to solve health, safety and housing problems of single-person households.
Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon announced the measure, saying his government will make greater efforts to improve the quality of life for about 1.39 million single-person households in Seoul, which account for 34.9 percent of the total households, according to the city government’s data.
“One in three households consists of one person, and the happiness of single-person households is the happiness of Seoul citizens,” said Oh, who launched a special team on the welfare of single-person households in April last year.
“Seoul’s policy has long been designed and implemented on the basis of four-person households. The paradigm will now be changed,” the mayor said.
The city government’s single-person household policy will be pushed in four major areas — health, safety, isolation and housing, he said.
In the health field, for instance, the hospital visit accompaniment service will be offered to low-income one-person households for free from this year, the city government said, forecasting the cumulative number of service users will rise to 100,000 by 2026.
It will promote a pilot project to provide single-person households with “good food packages” composed of fresh seasonal ingredients.
In addition, safety will be enhanced in neighborhoods where single-person households are concentrated.
So-called safe village sheriffs will be dispatched to 51 locations by 2026.
Old security lights in alleyways will be replaced with “smart security lights,” while about 2,000 surveillance cameras will be additionally installed in university districts and one-room villages by 2026.
An artificial intelligence conversation service will be launched for one-person elderly households this year to check their well-being and manage meals and exercise by phone, the city government said, adding the beneficiaries will increase to 30,000 by 2026.
In the housing field, the city will supply more than 70,000 single-person houses with a minimum floor size of more than 25 square meters.
About 1,300 integrated houses where single-person and multi-person households of various generations live together will also provided, it said.
(Yonhap)
