Recently, he heard a professor in the social welfare field express concerns about the Catholic Church's opposition to the deinstitutionalization policy. He also heard many comments criticizing the Catholic Church's position on the government's 'Act on Support for Community Independence and Housing Transition of the Disabled'. On April 6, the National Coalition for the Disabled Against Deinstitutionalization staged a protest at the Myeongdong Cathedral in Seoul.
Expressing your opinion is a right we all enjoy. However, is it okay to occupy the cathedral and cause trouble just because one's opinion is different? They even reported the absurd claim that the Catholic Church opposes deinstitutionalization, community independence, and housing transition because it operates many residential facilities for disabled people.
It is truly unfair and insulting to hear this kind of talk. ‘Deinstitutionalization’ became an issue in the field of disabled people’s welfare, and we cannot standardize things just because they seem good without considering the type of disability. However, the Ministry of Health and Welfare, national policy agencies, and deinstitutionalization support groups are currently accepting the appeal of the words ‘independence’ and ‘deinstitutionalization’ without a broad understanding of them, and are treating facilities as ‘social evils that must be eliminated.’ They are also branding those who speak of the need for facilities as outdated groups or groups obsessed with protecting their own interests.
In August 2021, the Ministry of Health and Welfare announced the ‘Deinstitutionalization Disabled Community Self-Reliance Support Roadmap’ The core content of this roadmap is to close residential facilities for the disabled within 10 years and provide public rental housing to all disabled people living in the facilities, except for about 2,000 disabled people whose disabilities are so severe that they cannot live alone.
What exactly is the standard for 2,000 people who can remain in the facilities, and what is the basis for the target period of ‘10 years’? Despite this, the government conducted a pilot project for deinstitutionalization from 2022 to 2024. However, some of the severely disabled people who were hastily transferred to the local community without sufficiently reflecting their wishes died because they did not receive timely treatment, or their nutritional and sanitary conditions deteriorated significantly.
According to the results of the Seoul Metropolitan Government’s comprehensive survey of deinstitutionalization, only about 700 of the approximately 1,200 disabled people who were deinstitutionalized had their residences confirmed. Among the 487 people who participated in the survey, 281 people returned to their homes after being deinstitutionalized, 136 people were discharged by others, and 24 people died within 4 years of being deinstitutionalized.
Since before the term “social work” existed, the church has seen organized acts of love within the church community as its essential mission. The church's treatment of the poor and marginalized, including people with disabilities, can be one of the first times in human history that they were respected like everybody else. This is why the church has pointed out the dangers of the deinstitutionalization policy and the community independence and residential support project for people with disabilities currently underway in Korea.
The columnist is not opposed to support for independence in itself, but the need to discern between those who can benefit from independent living and those who continue to need help. We are not opposed to different types of housing. What the Catholic Church is opposed to is the unfortunate reality that people with disabilities are victimized and their lives are jeopardized by narrow-minded and less than pure intentions. It is time for a more mature and in-depth approach to disability policy.
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