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City gov't announces 5-year plan for disabled residents; rights groups call for more in terms of humane housing options for severely disabled
By Lee Suh-yoon
Seoul Metropolitan Government announced its second five-year plan to ensure the rights of disabled residents in the capital, Tuesday, four days ahead of April 20 Disabled People's Day in Korea.
The plan follows the previous five-year plan from 2014 to 2018. According to this year's plan, the city will inject 890 billion won ($784 million) to make public transportation barrier-free, improve housing options and create more jobs for disabled citizens by 2023.
Currently, fewer than half of the buses in the city's public transport system are wheelchair-accessible. The city says it will switch the remaining buses to ones with automatic wheelchair ramps in five years. Similarly, some 26 subway stations in Seoul that still lack an elevator will have at least one by 2023, starting with Gwanghwamun Station on Line 5 and Sujin Station on Line this year. It will also increase the number of subsidized wheelchair-accessible taxis to 682 vans by 2022.
In addition, 800 more public sector jobs will be created for disabled citizens. The city will also provide 15 more public housing units ― from the current 85 ― where two or three people with severe disabilities who leave large-scale institutions can stay for up to two years under the guidance of a social worker. In a separate plan announced in December 2017, it said it would provide 60 permanent housing units with a similar support system each year.
"By strengthening policies for improving labor, mobility and housing rights of disabled people for the next five years, we will try to become a city where human rights and social unity are realized, making sure people with disabilities can lead equal lives to those without disabilities," Hwang Chi-young, a city official in charge of welfare policies, said in a press statement.
But some disability rights activists say the city's plans fall short of providing dignity to severely disabled persons who have little choice but to stay in large-scale congregate living facilities, usually accommodating about 30 to 100 people per facility according to 2017 city data. As of December 2017, there were 45 facilities hosting 2,657 people with severe disabilities in Seoul ― mostly related to developmental disabilities like autism or cerebral palsy.
"Apart from the frequent corruption and abuses of residents, having disabled people admitted to such big institutions is a human rights abuse in itself, because those people are prevented from leading individual lives as part of the local community," Park Kyung-seok, head of the Solidarity Against Disability Discrimination, told The Korea Times, Tuesday, outside City Hall, where the activist group had set up a makeshift protest camp the day before.
"The city's current plan only increases alternative housing for severely disabled people by 300 in the next five years. That means it will take 45 years for all 2,657 of the currently institutionalized people to get a chance to leave. "
A city official rebutted the criticism, saying according to a 2017 survey of disabled people at 42 institutions in Seoul, only 534, or 21 percent, replied they wished to leave.
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