hankyoreh

Oct. 5

By Hong Yong-deok, south Gyeonggi correspondent in Yanggu

“Wow, that’s some gift you’ve got! So you’re getting married now. You did it!”

Applause burst out at the words of 61-year-old Choi, the only woman in the field. “In my thirties, I would’ve already been on my second marriage, too,” she added. The object of their envy was their bachelor junior, 41-year-old Byeon Byeong-gu. Byeon, like the rest of them, is homeless.

It was around two months ago that he arrived at a farming village in the mountains of Gangwon province. He took on whatever farming work he could: laying plastic sheeting on fields, carrying saplings, spraying pesticides. Sometimes, he headed out to work as soon as he woke up at 6 am, returning to a small rented room twelve hours later to pass out cold. In the early going, his only preoccupation was saving money. So the Thai woman next door, roughly the same age as him, was a kind of “angel.”

She had also lived in the city before ending up in the countryside. She arrived seven years before in search of her own “Korean Dream.” A country girl, she had heard she could earn wages for as much work as she was willing to do in a farming village. She wasn’t badly off, either - comfortable enough to marry off two younger siblings back in Thailand. As a more experienced farmer, she cooked up meals for the clumsier Byeon and helped show him farming techniques. In the city, he had been plumbing the lower depths. Now he was all smiles. “Coming here, I found a new hope: family,” he said.

Byeon lost his father when he was seven years old. His mother walked out. Four older siblings went their own ways - he has no idea where they are now, or whether they’re still alive. Left at the house of a relative, Byeon just managed to finish high school and made his way to Seoul, where he was completely on his own. He did just about every kind of work, in factories and at manpower agencies, but ended up in debt, and finally landed on the street.

For five to six years, he went back and forth between the areas around Seoul Station and Suwon Station in Gyeonggi province. Consigned to a living hell, the Suwon Support Center for the Homeless returning farmer self-support program was a last “shred of hope.” For a month, he went to the center, which is affiliated with the Anglican Church in front of Suwon Station. There, he received a brief education in the humanities before heading out to his new life.

In his Gangwon farming village, Byeon earns 80,000 to 90,000 won (US$72-81) a day doing odd farm work. In the returning farmer settlement support program, the Suwon Support Center advises homeless people about the farming option, and the province provides 1.2 million won (US$1,075) a month for two months to cover living and food expenses. Once the period is over, the recipient is on his or her own. The program was introduced in 2011 to help homeless people who had trouble finding work in the city recover their self-esteem and earn enough money to get themselves back on their feet by helping out on in farming villages where there were shortages of labor.

The reaction from homeless who participate in the program was favorable. On Aug. 2, Byeon and seven others gathered at a mountain village restaurant in Gangwon. Choi, who settled last year, explained, “You have a foundation after just two months working here. I’m not going anywhere until I’ve saved up 25 million won (US$22,400) for my retirement.”

A 47-year-old man surnamed Kim, who headed for the village in June after five years of homeless life in the city, said, “The air is great, and it’s a nice place to live. But more than anything else, I’m just happy to be working. And it’s great that it’s not a free lunch.”

Kim said he had saved up one million won (US$900) over two months. “I’d like to live here,” he said. “It’s my last chance.”

Sitting quietly next to them was the oldest of the group, a 63-year-old man surnamed Shin. Now in his third year with the program, Shin has developed into a pro - successful enough to pick up a “second job” transporting workers in a van he purchased.

The success of the program didn’t come right away, and the results were disappointing for the first two years. During the first year of the program in 2011, only two of the 12 participants managed to settle. Last year, the number was just three out of six. Most of them returned to life on the street, unable to handle the strain.

“It’s difficult to leave the homeless life behind when you’ve been living that way for so long,” said Choi Seung-hee, a social worker at the Suwon support center. “Another part of it was the fact that the program was really inadequate early on. It didn’t go any farther than just introducing people to the returning farmer movement.”

Many participants in the program for self-sufficiency through farming said they still worry. "The rainy season has been really long this year, so there’ve been a lot of days where I’ve been unable to work," said a 57-year-old participant surnamed Park. Hands are hard to find in the farming villages, and wages are 10,000 to 20,000 won (US$9-18) a day more than most can be earned doing day labor in the city. But when the rain pours, the work dries up. Also, because farming is seasonal, work isn’t consistently available throughout the year. Participants find themselves increasingly nervous when the end of the two-month support period draws near.

"If you can’t pay 100,000 to 300,000 won (US$90-270) in rent, you end up back on the street begging," said Lee, a 46-year-old homeless man.

The success rate has been rising this year, with five of seven hopefuls managing to settle. Surveying the farms, Lee Young-ho, who heads the social services policy division for the province, observed that the participants "have a strong desire to stand on their own. We’re looking at ways of helping them establish a minimum base for self-sufficiency."

Anglican Priest Kim Dae-sul, who works at the Suwon support center, commented on the humanist education aspect of the program.

"The humanist education part may seem a bit strange, but it’s effective in helping frustrated homeless people regain their will and confidence and embrace the desire to come back through farming," he said. "We’re extending the education period and working more closely to build that desire for self-sufficiency. It’s also a great help to have veteran homeless people who succeeded in the past at settling in farming communities."

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]