Topic for January 15th

Warmup questions.    1. Be a energetic reporter as usual.  2. Do you have any habit when you get drunk? It doesn't matter good or bad.    Just let's make a big laugh. If you don't have, you can tell your friend's funny   drunk habit.   Main topic   1.Seoul Metropolitan city mayor, Lee Myung-bak declared that he would make use of the homeless to construct new town. They will be paid 40,000 to 50,000 won a day for their work. That amount of money can make them back into normal life if they try to work hard with no laziness. Do you think those kinds of welfare policy for them will work?   2. If you don't think the policy can't be ideal for those homeless people, what do you think the best ways to push them back to their family or parents from their life on the street?   3. Have you ever seen or met homeless people in the subway station or terminal? If you have , what was like?   4.When you go downtown or pass through underpath, you never miss dirty and    shabby looking people who are beggig for any coin on their hands. They could be  wanderers. Are you kind enough to throw any coins in their hands, or just turn away from them?   More shelters being planned in metropolitan area By Hwang You-meeA noisy and unruly confrontation between the homeless and police in Seoul Station two Sundays ago has prompted the Seoul Metropolitan Government to take a series of measures to tackle an issue that is likely to worsen as long as the economic slump drags on. Seoul Mayor Lee Myung-bak said in a Jan. 27 interview with Yonhap news agency that the city is considering a plan to let homeless people spend nights in designated shelters, and as a start has bought a building in Yongsan district where the homeless can wash clothes, shower and sleep. But as the number of people on the streets with no jobs or homes grows, so does the problem of dealing with homeless women - generally less fit physically than the men and exposed to the constant threat of sexual harassment. Newly established homeless shelters, including one near Seoul Station due to open in about a month after renovation, will be required to set aside separate areas for women. Additionally, the management of 11 women-only shelters will be strengthened to provide more protection. Gyeonggi Province, too, has also said it will provide housing for homeless women and family. According to statistics from the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the number of homeless women increased by 31 percent to 233 as of June 2004, compared to the previous year. It is feared however that the true number might be greater. While the majority of homeless men are people who lost their jobs and homes after the foreign exchange crisis in 1997, the women are more likely to have run away to escape domestic violence or sexual abuse, or suffer from physical or mental impairment. "Homeless women go through the most difficulty at night. Most of them have had to deal with men pestering them. If and when they happen to fall asleep, they wake up and find their clothes off. Some women thus would rather follow one homeless man than be harassed through the night," said Chang Mi-jeong of the Korea Foundation for Women, the first private fundraising organization for women. There are women-only shelters but homeless tend to avoid staying there. "Women who ran away from violence are on the streets without any experience of staying at a shelter so they prefer not to come to one. Others with mental problems have a hard time adjusting to living at a shelter," said Seo Jeong-hwa, director of the Open Women`s Center near Seoul Station. And, even if they do come in, there are only 11 shelters for women, compared to about 120 for men, including drop-in facilties. Women do not have any drop-in centers, which offer basic necessities including a meal, a shower, laundry, and one night`s sleep. "Homeless people tend to keep away from shelters as they are at first afraid of adjusting to normal social activities and do not want to settle down. So drop-in centers are very important as a prior step to going to a shelter," said Chang. The Open Women`s Center, launched last April, now houses 21 women and three mothers and their six children in its two-story house. "We actually started as a drop-in center but about 70 percent came here almost every day. So we decided to convert into a shelter in March," said Seo. There are currently 30 homeless people at the center but there are only three staff working there, including Seo. They take turns covering the shelter 24 hours a day since some of those living there are mentally impaired and need to be watched all the time. The ones with children are relatively young, in their 20s to 30s, and healthy, and can easily be trained for jobs such as hospice work or as cooks; the shelters and associated social centers provide job training and educational programs. Women on their own, on the other hand, are usually older -in their mid-40s at least - and often suffer from mental or physical illness. Also, some are illiterate and are not capable of entering the labor market. "So we have proposed to the Ministry of Labor an idea that we put together a self-support unit and start a small business, for example a small restaurant, in which all members of a shelter can participate and make money to take care of themselves," said Seo. The institution gets only 80 percent financial support from the government. To provide more options for women in need of help, the Open Women`s Center is planning on opening a drop-in center next month with the help of the Hanhwa Group and the Korea Foundation for Women. "We have been pleading for years that women, in particular, should not be sleeping on the streets. The danger women face is twice as much as men," lamented Seo. And, "homeless women have more diverse needs such as psychiatric counseling for domestic violence, and physical and sexual abuse," she added. So, a drop-in center or a women-only establishment is essential, for example, for a mother and her children running away from an abusive father at the crack of dawn. But government support is generally lacking because the number of homeless women is far smaller than men, say experts, including members of the Korea Support Center for the Homeless. However, forcing women "away from the streets into certain facilities," as the government indicated last week, "would not change much. We should aim to develop a social system to minimize the number of the homeless," said Seo.