Lee Jae-myung Visits Gyeonggi Happy Housing Air Conditioner Installation Site for Vulnerable Residents

[Suwon Ilbo=Park No-hun Reporter] As Gyeonggi Province has launched an emergency air conditioner installation project for 205 units of Gyeonggi Happy Housing where elderly residents and other vulnerable residents, who are vulnerable to extreme heat, live, Governor Lee Jae-myung visited the air conditioner installation site to console residents exhausted by the sweltering heat.

On the 5th, Governor Lee visited Gwanggyo Woncheon Gyeonggi Happy Housing located in Yeongtong-gu, Suwon, toured the air conditioner installation site, and held a meeting with residents.

The meeting was attended by residents including elderly people, basic livelihood security recipients, and young adults, as well as Noh Gi-woo, Executive Director of Dongbu Construction Co., Ltd., Lee Jung-rae, Management Director of Dongwon Construction Industry Co., Ltd., and Lee Heon-wook, President of Gyeonggi Housing and Urban Development Corporation (GH), where they listened to residents' inconveniences and exchanged opinions.

Governor Lee said, "Gyeonggi Province has been supporting vulnerable housing populations, and since last year, we have been implementing air conditioner installation projects for single-family homes where elderly people live," and explained, "I was shocked to hear recently that elderly people living in happy housing are not having air conditioners installed. This is due to government guidelines from 2016, and while it was revised in March, those built before that were not subject to it."

The governor continued, "The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport changed the guidelines, and while GH is not required to apply it to supply targets, they decided to fairly install air conditioners for everyone, which I think is really fortunate. We have entered an era where we must guarantee people's basic rights, and I am sorry to residents for being late," he said.

He added, "Whatever work we do, if there are issues with equity from the consumer's perspective, it can result in a worse situation than not doing it at all. There's also a saying that while poverty is endurable, unfairness is hard to bear."

Regarding happy housing, the governor said, "We should supply public rental housing in good locations like this. In Singapore, 80% of housing is like this," and stated, "Because people do business with housing and accumulate properties, those without homes see housing prices rise too much, and even if they work their whole lives, they cannot buy a house and are chased around paying monthly rent. We desperately need public housing where people can live their whole lives if they want, without being kicked out."

Gyeonggi Province's air conditioner installation this time retroactively applies government guidelines limited to new construction, and will be installed in all units of Gyeonggi Happy Housing with exclusive floor area of 26 square meters or less for elderly and other vulnerable residents.

Originally, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport's 'Public Housing Work Processing Guidelines' provided basic facilities only for youth and university student units with exclusive floor area of 25 square meters or less.

In March, the work processing guidelines were changed to 'regardless of class (maintaining exclusive floor area restrictions)' for air conditioner installation targets, but air conditioners still could not be supplied to already-completed units.

Because of this, as of the end of June, among move-in units of completed Gyeonggi Happy Housing in the province, vulnerable residents such as elderly people and basic livelihood security recipients were not supplied with air conditioners, leading to criticism over fairness.

Accordingly, the province decided to retroactively apply the work guidelines revised in March to completed move-in units and began installing air conditioners from the 29th of last month for 205 units of vulnerable residents including the elderly.

Gwanggyo Woncheon Gyeonggi Happy Housing (54 units) will complete installation this month, and other complexes including Namyangju Dasan Station Gyeonggi Happy Housing (29 units) and Hwaseong Dongtan Lake Park Gyeonggi Happy Housing (122 units) are planned to complete air conditioner installation sequentially by the end of the second half of the year.