ABSTRACT

The Republic of Korea has been struggling with increased homelessness over the last two decades, since the Asian Financial Crisis (AFC) in the late 1990s. This chapter reviews the lived experience of homelessness in Korea and the development of homeless policy. It examines current homeless policy and necessary reforms in the system to support the homeless. The chapter introduces contexts and previous studies of Korean homelessness by investigating key homelessness data. It then describes lived experiences of homelessness based on interviews with homeless men. The chapter also shows how homeless policy has unfolded at both national and regional levels and identifies directions for improving the existing system. It discusses the context of homelessness in Korea, the scale and distribution of homelessness, followed by lived experiences of homelessness in Seoul. The chapter outlines demographic features of homelessness such as age and gender. It discusses the central government's response, and describes about the response of the local government in Seoul.