Gyeonggi Province Exceeds Initial Goals for Happy Village Management Centers...Expanding to 81 Sites This Year

[Suwon Ilbo=Park No-hun] Gyeonggi Province announced on the 5th that it will expand operations of Happy Village Management Centers to 81 sites this year, an increase of 5 from the initial goal of 76 sites.

The 5 additional sites—3 in Paju and 2 in Icheon—will be selected in July and opened by September through coordination with cities and counties using budget savings from 3 installation costs secured through public recruitment by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, as well as 2 sites' savings achieved through utilizing newly constructed buildings.

Gyeonggi Province's Happy Village Management Centers are facilities designed to address residents' inconveniences related to parcel storage, tool rentals, environmental improvements, and other services. They are established in vacant houses, public facilities, and unused spaces in aging urban areas. These centers are effective in providing immediate, life-oriented public services and creating public jobs.

Since the first pilot project in 2018, Gyeonggi Province's Happy Village Management Centers have provided 860,000+ life-oriented public services, responded to COVID-19 with 330,000+ services, conducted 79,000+ region-specific projects, and created approximately 760 jobs through May of this year.

Even amid the COVID-19 situation, the centers have provided diverse services to residents, including creating safety maps of neighborhoods, delivering meals to undernourished children and elderly people, providing check-in call services, operating shared laundry facilities for vulnerable populations, conducting sterilization and prevention activities in shared spaces, and sharing houseplants and fish. Users showed 97% satisfaction and 98% willingness to use the services again.

Notably, this year the project is being pursued in connection with 7 policy areas: urban regeneration, community, welfare, culture, citizen self-governance, residential welfare, and social economy.
In the welfare sector, projects are coordinated with welfare associations and connected with human safety networks by city and county to identify and support welfare blind spots. In the culture sector, regional revitalization is pursued by linking with tourism-themed alley development projects being promoted by the province.

Through these efforts, Gyeonggi Province's Happy Village Management Centers were selected in last year's public recruitment for "2020 Strengthening Public Service Linkage in Residents' Living Fields" conducted by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, won top recognition in the "2020 Residents' Living Innovation Case Expansion Support Project" in the public-private cooperation sector, and received Innovation Champion awards.

On the 7th of last month, Gimpo, Pyeongtaek, and Anseong cities were selected in the village management center establishment project public recruitment conducted by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, receiving 50 million won each in installation costs for village management centers.

Happy Village Management Centers have now expanded to 13 cities and provinces including Seoul, Ulsan, North Chungcheong, Gwangju, Incheon, Busan, Gangwon, North Jeolla, South Jeolla, Sejong, North Gyeongsang, and South Gyeongsang provinces, in addition to Gyeonggi Province.

The province is recommending institutionalization at the central government level to expand Happy Village Management Centers nationwide and ensure project sustainability.

Currently, the province is in discussions with the Ministry of the Interior and Safety to establish a new budget line for Happy Village Management Center support under the Ministry's general account to receive stable annual funding.

Park Keun-kyun, director of the Autonomous Administration Division of Gyeonggi Province, said, "We are currently preparing efficient operational measures including recommending public buildings and providing bonus points, providing personnel support through community job projects, talent donations through volunteers, and deploying specialized full-time civil servants such as village activity leaders to secure self-sufficiency through operating cost reductions," adding, "We will make good progress in discussions with the central government so that expanded national budget support and institutionalization can bear fruit."