Questions/Answers

Seoul City’s outreach program, dubbed the “Hope Ondol Project,” was triggered by the death of an elderly homeless person in a public restroom shortly after Seoul Mayor Park Won-Soon took office. The man’s death, which occurred despite the diverse welfare programs available for the underprivileged in Seoul, made Park realize that those programs had some serious fundamental problems. Having been acutely aware of the limitations of the city’s welfare divisions, Park suggested that Seoul City reform the entire public welfare delivery system based on a thorough review and created an office to undertake the task. * “Ondol” refers to the traditional Korean underfloor heating system. As the ondol system is characterized by its capacity to keep the floor warm for a long time once it heats up, Seoul City chose the term “ondol,” from among the many entries that were made to the welfare project naming contest, as a symbol of the care it provides for the underprivileged. The entire process of planning, executing, and evaluating the projects suggested by the mayor was led by the Citizens Planning Committee, which consists of 24 experts in various fields related to social welfare, including college professors, members of NGOs and Seoul City Council, and journalists. Also, 122 private organizations, including community welfare centers, senior welfare centers, welfare centers for people with physical disabilities, and private local welfare organizations, have participated in the project, which has served as a link between the public and private sectors and induced over 3,800 civic organizations to join. As a result, in 2012 alone, Seoul City spent KRW 16.8 billion to provide financial support for the livelihoods and medical treatment of over 292,000 people, including some 97,000 people in the low-income bracket, helping them pay for daily necessities, heating, and rent. Since its launch, the Hope Ondol Project has continued to serve those in need.

Although various welfare policies have been executed under the leadership of the public sector within a rigid legal and institutional frame, those policies were unable to meet the needs of underprivileged people due to the nature of bureaucracy. Consequently, over 290,000 citizens have been left without public support due to their inability to meet the criteria set by law and policy despite their dire need for assistance. To address these problems, the Hope Ondol Project aims to shift the current bureaucracy-centric paradigm to build a public-private network and a “regional welfare community” through the voluntary participation of grassroots civic organizations, volunteer groups, businesses, and the general public and their donations. Through the project, Seoul City plans to expand its welfare services to include people living in poverty who urgently need help but are somehow ineligible for institutional support and have fallen through the cracks of the current welfare programs, thereby reaching out to all people who suffer from hunger and spend the winter without heat.

First, the Hope Ondol Project is based on innovative ideas, policies, methodology, and structure, as it is a welfare outreach program for the poor that is led not by the public but by public-private partnerships. Second, it has made welfare services more accessible through the Hope Wagon Program, which is designed to deliver daily necessities to people in need with the help of volunteers and corporate donations. Third, Seoul City has listened to diverse voices from the field through joint workshops for the Citizens Planning Committee and other organizations that participate in the Hope Ondol Project and carried out resident-centered welfare programs based on cooperation among Hope Neighbors, welfare institutions, and organizations. Fourth, Seoul City created the Hope Ondol Project website by taking advantage of Seoul City’s world-class IT infrastructure and transparency in terms of the performance of welfare institutions, public organizations, and citizens. Through the website, Seoul reached a total of 10,665 underprivileged people and families and provided them with support transparently and promptly. Last but not least, in a bid to perform its duties in a more responsible way, the city government published a white paper on the Hope Ondol Project and created a system through which the government can be demanded to take responsibility for the public services it provides on the basis of the assessments conducted by local district offices and local social welfare centers.

The Hope Ondol Project has made a significant contribution to improving public services by providing the underprivileged with support not through the public sector but through public-private partnerships. When a civic organization identifies people in need, for instance, the Korea Engine Management Engineering Association donates and installs a heating system, and Seoul City, the local district office, and the social welfare center jointly manage the cooperative network and provide financial support. Under the previous welfare delivery system, the public and private sectors were clearly separated from each other and did not interact. With the launch of the Hope Ondol Project, Seoul City is striving to work in partnership with various private organizations systematically to avoid overlapping or omitting assistance. In addition, Seoul has visited places where financially vulnerable people live, such as dosshouses, to distribute rice, ramen, gloves, and blankets, among other goods, to low-income families, seniors living alone, and homeless people as part of the Hope Wagon Project, which was launched to deliver daily necessities to poor people with the help of volunteer workers and corporate donations. Seoul has not only provided goods to people in need but also carried out home improvement projects, such as putting up wallpaper, laying flooring, and replacing heating systems, in cooperation with private organizations. It has operated the Hope Wagon Project and provided emergency assistance to an average of 20,000 households annually.

The Hope Ondol Project has made it possible to reach out to the underprivileged people who have somehow fallen through the cracks of welfare programs despite their urgent need of assistance. Above all, Seoul City has raised Hope Ondol regional emergency funds from citizens and businesses to provide those who have fallen into poverty due to unexpected crises but are unable to receive assistance, due to their failure to meet the legal criteria, with up to KRW 1 million to cover their rent and living expenses. Seoul has provided an average of KRW 1.3 billion in support for 5,700 people every year. For urgent cases where the Hope Ondol regional emergency financial aid is insufficient, Seoul can provide up to KRW 10 million of emergency financial assistance to help cover rent. Second, the city raises over KRW 30 billion annually by holding a charity fundraising campaign in cooperation with the Community Chest of Korea and local cable TV channels to compensate for any lack of public welfare budget. The funds thus raised are used as part of the Hope Ondol funds or for the bank account project that has been developed to help low-income people build and manage financial assets. Third, Seoul remains committed to eliminating the blind spots in the welfare system and consolidating the social safety net by forming various volunteer groups for the poor, such as the Hope Neighbors, which is made up of citizens, and Hope Shops, which consists of owners of grocery stores, as well as beauty shops, homemade food shops, and other small businesses. Currently, there are over 5,600 members of Hope Neighbors and 3,200 members of Hope Shops in Seoul.

The Hope Ondol Project has had a positive impact on citizens from all walks of life in various ways. First, Hope Neighbors groups deliver food to seniors living alone and check on them on a regular basis. They also identify people in need, the majority of whom are elderly people living alone because they do not know how to apply for public support even though they may be eligible for it. Second, Seoul City carries out a home improvement project, designed to create a pleasant living atmosphere for housing disadvantaged people, with the help of donations from businesses and volunteer workers. A group of volunteers go to low-income families identified by the local district office and private organizations and provide them with home repair services, put up wallpaper, lay flooring, and replace window screens and old heating systems. In 2017, Seoul provided financial support for home repairs for 31,840 households using funds and goods donated by private citizens, without having to spend any of the project’s budget. Last but not least, Seoul operates food banks and food markets, which are designed to provide donated food to beneficiaries of basic livelihood security benefits and emergency welfare plans. Currently, the city is operating one food bank, 25 local food banks, and 25 regional food markets.

Before the launch of the Hope Ondol Project, civil servants affiliated with Seoul City and local districts of the city were hostile toward the idea of treating private organizations as equal partners, and private organizations looked at civil servants with distrust. In this respect, the Hope Ondol Project is truly innovative in that it has moved beyond such prejudice to become a successful model of public-private partnership. The Hope Ondol Project is led, planned, and executed by the private sector. Representatives of the private sector are involved in the process of forming the Citizens Planning Committee and making decisions regarding the project. The members of the Citizens Planning Committee have voluntarily reached out to private institutions to draw their attention to the Hope Ondol Project and secure their cooperation, which has allowed the project to achieve even more. Seoul City supported the Citizens Planning Committee in its efforts to build a cooperative consortium with private institutions for the Hope Ondol Project in each district, allowing individual institutions to build trust by working together. To promote the Hope Ondol Project among project participants and the general public, Seoul has introduced various examples of successful public-private partnerships and posted essays on helping people in need and the experiences of volunteer workers on the project’s website. It was able to do this by holding essay contests, giving presentations, and publishing a white paper.

The Hope Ondol Project is truly unique and innovative. The decline of the traditional community is one of the most serious threats faced by modern society today. The system through which community members help each other by sharing and solving problems is now disappearing. With the rapid changes in our modern society, many factors have contributed to the fall of communities, and we have made little effort to stop it. A former civil activist, Seoul Mayor Park Won-Soon was determined to shape Seoul into a place where people live in harmony and communities are filled with vitality once again. He suggested the launch of the Hope Ondol Project based on his vision of Seoul as a community where citizens voluntarily reach out and lend a helping hand to people who have fallen through the cracks of the welfare system. The Hope Ondol Project represents a new paradigm for the creation of communities and is an alternative way of easing the social tensions caused by economic inequality and the increase in the number of socioeconomically disadvantaged people. To those who were familiar with the typical, government-led welfare delivery system, the Hope Ondol Project was something completely new. However, the public-private partnership established through the project proved essential to the supply of resources sufficient to meet the demand for welfare services. The Hope Ondol Project, which promotes the active participation of citizens and civic organizations and pursues horizontal partnerships among public and private sector actors, has shown that the welfare network must change in response to the changes occurring in the role of communities.

Of particular importance, Seoul City consulted with the Community Chest of Korea, Seoul Council on Social Welfare, and other private institutions, who agreed to share the financial burden with the public sector and actively play their roles consistently. Seoul provides them with systematic support to ensure that they are able to secure donations more effectively. Also, Seoul Metropolitan Government installed the “Hope Welfare Assistance Department” to serve as a liaison between the Hope Ondol Project and the private sector. A total of 333 civil servants have joined the Hope Welfare Support Corps that have been installed in the 25 local district offices of Seoul. In addition, 5,676 Hope Neighbors volunteer are actively working to identify people in need, and a total of 3,883 public organizations, including religious organizations and volunteer groups, are participating in the project. Seoul City does its best to make the project more readily accessible to citizens by allowing them to apply for counseling and services for themselves or for others at district offices, local ward offices, and welfare centers. The relevant institutions have access to information on the progress of the project via the website.

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The Hope Ondol Project can serve as a successful model of welfare based on public-private cooperation for developing nations, especially for nations where public welfare systems are underdeveloped, and private resources are not utilized efficiently. Civil servants from many developing nations visit Seoul regularly to learn about its advanced municipal administration. As these visitors have shown great interest in the Hope Ondol Project, Seoul plans to expand its training program in relation to the project. The Hope Ondol Project also suggests ways of improving welfare delivery systems. The public-private partnerships and development and use of private resources that Seoul has achieved through the Hope Ondol Project have been benchmarked by local governments across Korea. As a result, it won the grand prize at the first Regional Welfare Awards held by The Hankyoreh, a Korea-based daily newspaper. The Hope Wagon Program has also been benchmarked and implemented by some local governments. Especially, Seoul City is taking the initiative in restoring communities—an effort for which the Hope Ondol Project is laying the foundation. Seoul citizens’ sense of community is disappearing with the city’s rapid urbanization, but the Hope Ondol Project is playing a major role in reviving communities in Seoul, as proven by the fact that Seoul City and other regions are promoting the creation of welfare-based communities.

Before the launch of the Hope Ondol Project, various welfare policies had been implemented under the leadership of the public sector within the rigid legal and institutional framework. Due to the nature of bureaucracy, however, these policies failed to meet the needs of underprivileged citizens. Over 290,000 citizens were left without public support due to their inability to meet the criteria established by law and policy, despite their dire need for help. To solve this problem, a dramatic increase in the welfare budget is necessary. However, Korea’s expenditure on social welfare is relatively low compared to the OECD average of 19.8 percent. Also, although Seoul City’s social welfare budget increased from 16.1 percent in 2007 to 25.9 percent in 2012, the participation of Seoul citizens in welfare programs remains relatively low (16.8 percent). Under such socioeconomic constraints, the Hope Ondol Project needs to make a major breakthrough to ensure its sustainability. Seoul City has strived to overcome such problems through partnerships with private organizations and citizens. As it is difficult for public organizations to solve social problems with limited funding and human resources, partnerships with the private sector are indispensable. Regardless of the constraints related to financial and human resources, the Hope Ondol Project is sustainable, as it uses private resources provided through diverse programs. These programs include: the Food Market and Food Bank programs, which deliver donated food to people in need; Hope Neighbors, which involves private citizens identifying poor people suffering from hunger and exposure to cold weather and lending them a helping hand by providing them with food, putting up wallpaper, laying flooring, and carrying out other home improvement projects; and a home improvement program called the “Happy Room Program,” which checks, repairs, and replaces heating systems for low-income families in partnership with heating system suppliers and wholesalers.

The Hope Ondol Project is now celebrating its eighth anniversary. Since the launch of the project in 2011, the Citizens Planning Committee has planned and carried out the project and held 58 meetings. Currently, the third Citizens Planning Committee is carrying out the project. The project raised KRW 92.2 billion in 2016 and KRW 103 billion in 2017 and formed partnerships with 117 private businesses and organizations to deliver daily necessities to underprivileged households. Also, Seoul City has replaced heating systems and put up wallpaper and laid flooring for 163,832 households since 2012 as part of the Happy Room Program. The sustainability of the Hope Ondol Project depends on Seoul’s determination to improve the quality of life for Seoul citizens, on the one hand, and the successful formation of a public-private cooperative system, on the other. In local districts, regional welfare centers have taken the lead in working with private organizations to gain access to and make use of private resources. In addition, Hope Neighbors, which consists of volunteer citizens and owners of small businesses, such as supermarkets and rice shops, who have intimate knowledge about the less-fortunate members of their communities, takes the initiative in carrying out regional welfare programs. Members of Hope Neighbors are responsible for informing local welfare centers of people in need who have been neglected and helping them receive support. The Hope Ondol Project involves all welfare-related divisions of Seoul Metropolitan Government. In the past, welfare programs were undertaken solely by these welfare-related divisions. However, over 10 divisions related to housing, employment, and health are now participating in the Hope Ondol Project to build a comprehensive welfare promotion system. For their part, regional districts have launched the Hope Welfare Support Group, an integrated body designed to undertake the Hope Ondol Project. With such systematic support driving it forward, the Hope Ondol Project has established itself as a sustainable welfare program.

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The Hope Ondol Project has been assessed by the district office, which is in charge of supervising, planning, and supporting regional projects, grassroots civil organizations, which work in the field, and local welfare centers, which actually implement the project. The evaluation committee, which consists of members of the Citizens Planning Committee, assigns a score to each report submitted by the district office in accordance with the evaluation criteria. The evaluation committee evaluates the Hope Ondol Project carried out by local welfare centers by conducting on-site inspections. The committee reviewed the data submitted by 111 local welfare centers and chose 15 institutions among the 42 that passed the first stage of the screening process. It is noteworthy that the evaluation committee does not decide the ranking and reflects the opinions of those working in the field in its evaluation of local welfare centers, in accordance with the suggestion made by committee members. The eight candidate institutions promote their programs by giving presentations, and the final winner is selected through an instant vote. The evaluation is based on document screening (50 percent), scores given by the evaluation committee (20 percent), and the results of the instant vote (30 percent).

The evaluation proves that the public-private welfare network has drawn attention to the blind spots in the welfare system and improved the system both quantitatively and qualitatively. To give an example, in 2011 alone, Seoul City provided assistance to a total of 291,325 underprivileged people who had not received benefits from public safety nets, helping them pay for daily necessities, medical treatment, heating, and rent. As a result, 2011 was the first year on record in which no homeless person was reported to have frozen to death in Seoul. In addition, Seoul City raised KRW 32 billion for charity in 2011 by conducting a campaign across Seoul and made use of various resources, such as time, materials, and talent, donated by individual citizens and businesses. As a result, countless people in need benefited from 11,437 cases of talent donation provided by experts in various fields, such as medicine and heating system repair. Also, 122 private organizations used donated private resources to help those who had been excluded from the public welfare system. In addition, Seoul discovered 264 problems in 12 categories caused by the legal and institutional constraints that exist in the Hope Ondol Project implementation process and proposed that revisions be made in 2011.

The evaluation index consists of 14 indices in six categories, as follows: A. Identification and support of underprivileged citizens A1. Formulation and execution of detailed, district-level plans for the Hope Ondol Project A2. Results of the identification and provision of support for underprivileged citizens B. Results of the Hope Ondol Room Project and related activities B1. Results of the Hope Ondol Happy Room Program (summer) B2. Results of the Hope Ondol Warm Room Project (winter) C. Identification and collection of private resources C1. Collection of donated goods and other private resources C2. Participation and management of private organizations D. Citizen participation D1. Press coverage and promotion of the Hope Ondol Project D2. Production of PR materials for the Hope Ondol Project E. Community map and white paper E1. Newsletter and material donations E2. Identification of and provision of support for people in need E3. Production of a white paper E4. Experience sharing through writing F. Administrative support F1. Execution of the project budget F2. Timeliness and appropriateness of various reports and data related to the Hope Ondol Project

The Hope Ondol Project is based on the governance of public-private partnership and the participation of citizens in the entire process, from policy formulation to execution and evaluation. The Citizens Planning Committee, consisting of 24 professors and experts in diverse fields, including members of NPOs, NGOs, the press, and Seoul Metropolitan Council, is responsible for planning the projects suggested by the mayor, putting the plans into action, and evaluating them. It also holds press interviews and evaluation workshops where ideas and opinions proposed by the members of the Citizens Planning Committee are reflected in the process. Public-private cooperative networks are formed at the district level as well. Serving as liaisons between the public and private sectors, 122 private social welfare institutions, including community welfare centers, senior welfare centers, welfare centers for people with physical disabilities, and regional welfare communities, along with 3,883 civic groups, participate in the Hope Ondol Project. * The community welfare centers provide welfare services designed to prevent and solve welfare-related problems. Consisting of volunteer citizens, Hope Neighbors is designed to reach out to people in need. In 2012, a total of 1,692 volunteers provided their services, and as of December 2017, a total of 5,676 members of Hope Neighbors are affiliated with 471 groups and are helping 52,237 underprivileged people. Seoul City has also built sustainable cooperative networks made up of grassroots civic groups and volunteer groups and invited 624 groups to join 91 projects to help people in the low-income bracket.

Above all, the Hope Ondol Project has taught us that welfare should be based not on law and institutions but on the needs of citizens. By striving to go beyond legal constraints to satisfy the needs of underprivileged people, the project successfully filled the gaps in the welfare system. Driven by the success of the Hope Ondol Project, Seoul City will continue strengthening its social safety nets by establishing a Seoul City welfare standard and reaching out to people in need at the local district level. The Hope Ondol Project has also proved the importance of bottom-up, customized services that reflect the unique characteristics of local areas. The welfare policy in Korea has traditionally been formulated and executed by the government and, consequently, is limited in its ability to reflect regional characteristics and demand. The Hope Ondol Project, however, has revealed new possibilities in welfare administration. Therefore, Seoul City will continue encouraging citizens to actively participate in its welfare programs by holding various policy workshops and fairs. Last but not least, the Hope Ondol Project has shown that leadership plays a vital role in reforming welfare administration. In particular, the project was driven by the strong determination and effort of the mayor of Seoul, who held meetings with the Citizens Planning Committee, attended public hearings regularly to hear the opinions of citizens, and supervised the entire implementation process of the project. He also strived to increase the welfare budget and enhance the organization and will continue pushing the limits of the welfare administrative system.