A home is not a commodity but a fundamental human right. This recognition became institutionalized in Europe around the year 1900.
A professor in an urban engineering department in Seoul provides readers of The Catholic Times' View from the Ark column with background on a serious issue in many countries worldwide.
As capitalism developed and urbanization led to the spread of slums and overcrowded housing, countries like the UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Austria judged they could not leave housing solely to the market, and continued to enact 'Housing Acts'.
These laws provided a legal basis for public and non-profit institutions to directly supply public rental housing and social housing, and institutionalized rent caps and tenant protection measures. The Housing Acts marked the starting point of elevating homes from 'commodities' to 'social infrastructure'.
As a result, a significant portion of European cities is characterized by social housing and public rental housing. In Vienna, Austria, consistently ranked among the most livable cities in the world, there are far more renters than homeowners. Most rental housing in Europe is effectively a lifelong lease. Tenants cannot be evicted unless they wish to vacate, and rent is subject to legal regulation to prevent sudden increases. Renting is not a temporary stopover, but a normal way of life, and social housing is a universal housing system that includes not just the socially vulnerable but also the middle class.
What about our reality? It is quite the opposite. Most rental housing in Korea is temporary. Beyond private rentals, even public rentals are typically set for 5 or 10 years. Rent is left to market forces and can skyrocket with each renewal. Renting is not a place to establish a life, but a temporary waiting space. It is unstable and precarious for many.
This instability has given rise to the phrases meaning 'borrowing everything to buy a house,' and meaning 'it must be a new construction even if you freeze to death. A home is an investment in which one must stake their life.
Past government policies were no different. Without exception, they clung to the 'supply theory', measured performance by the 'home ownership rate', and treated renting only as a step toward ownership. Although the number of rental homes increased, their proportion remains small. Policies have failed to make renting a stable way of life.
It is now time to change the goal. 'How many people own homes?' should no longer be the question. This kind of anxiety gave rise to the concept of 'borrowing to the max, to buy a house', and it has to be a new house. A house became an investment to bet your life on, not a place for a family to live.
Policies by past governments were no different. Without exception, they clung to the idea of 'supply' and evaluated performance by the 'home ownership rate', treating rental housing merely as a step before ownership. Although the number of rental homes increased, their proportion still remains small.
Efforts to make renting a stable way of life have failed. Now, the goal must change. The focus should not be 'How many people own homes?' but 'How many people can live long, with peace of mind, without worrying about moving?' The proportion of public and social rental housing should be increased, and the rental system, mainly based on short-term contracts, should be converted into long-term rental structures. The method of supplying rental housing must also change. Instead of large-scale development such as new towns or large-scale redevelopment and reconstruction, rental housing should be expanded through 'small-scale regeneration', converting vacant houses, empty stores, and unused offices into homes.
There are many viable alternatives, including the public purchase of aging low-rise housing, renovating it into comfortable homes, allowing original residents to live in their new homes for life while receiving the transaction proceeds as a pension, and renting the additional homes to young people and newlyweds. Housing policy should also be integrated with population and family policies. Models like (public rental housing for newlyweds linked to multiple children), which provide newlyweds with affordable rental homes and extend the rental period and size by 10 years and 10 pyeong proportional to the number of children, must be institutionalized.
Creating a structure where having more children reduces housing worries can also provide a solution to low birth rates. Many people suffer because of housing: young people and newlyweds losing sleep over rising rent, tenants packing up each time their contracts expire. Looking at our urgent housing reality, one cannot help but ask: If Jesus lived as a youth in South Korea today, would he have been able to own a home?
