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[김성렬교수의 시사영어] Homeless Free Station Kills
Around 3 p.m. on January 5 at the foot of Mount Sujong in Dong-gu, Sujong-dong in Busan, Mr. Lee (31 years old) was found dead, having slept in a thin windbreaker, covered by an old blanket.
According to the police, Mr. Lee, a homeless person having nowhere to go, had gone to the mountain for the past few days to sleep, freezing to death apparently from hypothermia and malnourishment.
In a harsh winter, not infrequent news of homeless deaths by exposure to the cold comes as hardly a surprise to Mr. Jeon (52 years old), who has been homeless for 17 years at the Seomyeon underground shopping area in Busan. "If we leave the subway and sleep outside, on that day we will freeze to death," Mr. Jeon said, adding "the homeless who do not have suitable places to sleep are always exposed to death in winter."
The homeless have found it exceedingly difficult to obtain places to sleep after KORAIL, declaring its intention to make Busan Station, known as the "Abode of the Homeless," a "Homeless Free Station," closed the station's night lounge and the first floor's entrance last February and April. At that time, Busan Metropolitan City Hall gave advance notice that "Emergency Sleeping Places" for the sake of the homeless were going to be prepared, but as a result of budget deficits among other reasons, lodgings are not being secured for them at present this winter.
In the meantime, 3 homeless people so far this winter have died from sleeping outside in the cold. On December 3, in Youngdo-gu, Bongrae-dong, Mr. Kim (50 years old) died from hypothermia while sleeping on the roadside in front of an apartment complex. More recently on December 30, a homeless man in his forties sleeping next to a trash area of a residence in Dong-gu, Jwacheon-dong, froze to death as the weather suddenly changed. Every night at the Seomyeon underground shopping area, placing torn cardboard boxes on the floor, covering themselves with newspapers, currently 50 to 60 homeless people address sleep in a curled up position. Joong-gu, Joongang-dong's and Nampo-dong's subway stations as well as the map areas inside other stations are being used as winter lodgings by not a few homeless citizens.
Although on December 31 Busan Metropolitan City Hall as quickly as possible instructed each district office "to offer places for the homeless to sleep inside by opening its building if the temperature falls below zero," due to inadequate publicity, most homeless people have not sought refuge at district offices. Even if the homeless were aware of this information, they would in reality still find it difficult to set out for these places of refuge for fear they might walk in vain, not being in a position to ascertain easily everyday the exact temperature outside.
The homeless, moreover, who are using the facilities at Hope Hall and 6 other similar shelters in Busan can endure and abide by the group regulations of such places for only a few days, ultimately moving back out onto the streets."From a long term perspective, what the homeless need most is a job. At the very least, it would be good if they were assured food and shelter," said Lee Ho-joon, President of the Union of the Unemployed Homeless.(한글 내용은 www.busanilbo.com 1월 7일자 9면)
urizen@dau.ac.kr
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 / 입력시간: 2008. 01.22. 09:47
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