Since 2002, the Seoul Metropolitan Government has implemented a program to subsidize the monthly rent of low-income households who are not paid under the jurisdiction of the National Basic Livelihood Security Law. The program complemented the shortcomings of the integrated benefit system with the use of the local government’s own budget. Since its implementation, as the National Basic Livelihood Security System has been reorganized and eased, the number of Seoul rent subsidy program recipients has decreased over time, plunging from around 10,000 households between 2014 and 2017, to 4.8 million households in 2019. Although the housing cost subsidy is a representative housing welfare program that coexists alongside public rental housing, it is recognized in Korea as a program that complements public rental housing. In the case of the Seoul Metropolitan Government, where maintaining a large supply of large-scale public rental housing is difficult in practice, the expansion and increase of the rental subsidy system needs to be balanced between the need for public rental housing and housing benefits.

The public officers in charge of operating the Seoul rent subsidy program, including the heads and staff of the Housing Support Center and experts in related research fields, all, suggested the need to establish long-term policy goals, and the explains of policy targets by easing support standards. Additionally, they also suggested that it is necessary to improve the delivery system, discover the target through active promotion, and introduce new types of Seoul rent subsidy programs for the long-term future.

In order to balance public rental housing as the Seoul rent subsidy program establishes the status of a housing policy support program, improvement measures were proposed which focused on dividing the system aspect and operation aspect.

In terms of the orientation of the system, it is necessary to ease the support criteria to 70% of the standard median income in the short and medium-term, and for the long-term, to secure the consistency of housing welfare policy by setting it to 85% of the standard median income or the same as the eligibility of national rental housing. As an alternative for the short- to mid-term, a plan was proposed to subsidize 80,000 won (Alternative 1) and 90,000 won (Alternative 2) for a single person household. Based on the annual support target of 10,000 households, the budget is expected to cost 103.8 billion won per year in the case of implementing Alternative 1 and 117.0 billion won in the case of Alternative 2.

In terms of operation, it is necessary to strengthen the delivery system, such as increasing the role of the Seoul Metropolitan Government and establishing a computerized system in order to focus on the intensive promotion and discovery of targets for housing poverty households and support needs. In addition, it is necessary to introduce a Seoul rent subsidy program linked to social housing and emergency transitional housing.