More Than Food: Seoul Gentrification Threatens Free Meal Centre

Before the Zaha Hadid-designed plaza, before the luxury high rises, before the South Korean neighbourhood hosted fashion week, there was a pastor handing out rice to poor pensioners in Seoul's Dongdaemun district.

But as land values in the rapidly gentrifying area have soared, Choi Il-do has found himself increasingly at odds with his new neighbours, who claim his popular free meal service centre attracts too many people, leading to crime and hurting property prices.

A new district chief won office in 2022 on the back of a promise to relocate the "Babfor" centre -- which means "scooping out rice" -- and Choi now faces multiple legal cases, based on property law technicalities.

Residents of the glitzy condos that now overlook the small, bustling Babfor centre "claim our service has devalued their properties by up to 200 million won ($145,000)" per apartment, Choi told AFP.

Choi blames "unfounded rumours" that his clientele -- overwhelmingly pensioners who are South Korea's poorest demographic, with a poverty rate of around 40 percent -- commit crimes.

A court case this month will hear and potentially determine whether Choi has to pull down sections of his centre, which authorities now claim were built without proper permission.

But he says the lawsuit is part of a "coordinated campaign" to evict his centre, and "reflects the authorities' true aim: to force us out of this location".

For decades, hundreds of people -- 1,200 a day at its peak and currently around 700 -- have used the Babfor service centre for free hot meals.

Dongdaemun was once a low-rent area, home to a red-light district.

With support from local authorities, Choi set up his centre by a railway to serve Seoul's poorer residents, with the food always free for anyone in need, no questions asked.

Babfor previously enjoyed top-level government support: all of South Korea's living former presidents have visited Choi to help hand out food.

But as the capital's housing prices have soared -- doubling since 2019, real estate data shows -- and Dongdaemun transformed into a stylish residential district, Choi says officials have changed their tune.

They are eyeing his large plot of land, which is officially owned by local authorities, for possible redevelopment, he said.

In a 2022 meeting with Seoul's mayor, Oh Se-hoon, Choi recalled Oh asking him: "Why do you want to keep a free meal programme in such an expensive area?"

Immediately after his election in 2022, district chief Lee Pil-hyeong ordered sections of the centre to be demolished, hitting Choi with fines worth hundreds of millions of won.

Choi is battling the order in court, saying the move is a transparent effort to evict him from the prime location -- and push Seoul's poor pensioners further out of sight.

Without the downtown location and good transport links, pensioners from across the city will struggle to access the service, Choi says, the country's largest privately run free meal programme.

For the past 30 years, 82-year-old Lee Kun-ja has visited Babfor six days a week to eat, sometimes spending seven hours a day sitting there, chatting with friends.

To her, the free meal programme "feels more like home than my actual home", offering not just food, but also a space to meet friends.

"When I'm at home, I usually just pass the time lying in bed. But here, I'm not sleepy. I sit for nearly six hours talking to friends," Lee told AFP.

Other regulars echoed the sentiment, saying the free meals went beyond just food, providing them with companionship and connections in their old age.

"When I don't see my friends here, I wonder if something has happened to them. This place is like a community meeting spot," said another regular Lim Min-woo, 78.

Despite the country's solid economic growth thanks to booming exports of everything from semiconductors to K-pop music, many older South Koreans struggle to make ends meet.

In many other cities such as London and Paris, "services like ours are located where public transportation is accessible, ensuring that the most underprivileged can reach them", Choi said, insisting that Seoul needs to look out for its elderly.

"I'm not going anywhere."