Abstract
Resident participation or tenant empowerment is becoming an important concept of planning, provision of welfare services, and management of housing. It can be motivated by three variables: shared goals, shared values, and sense of community among residents. Theoretically, the more each of these three variables, the more likely people will be to participate. The purpose of this study was to identify the perception of management staff on residents' participation in public rental housing. For this, 198 management staff of public rental housing under Korea Housing Management were surveyed using questionnaire distributed by email during February 18 to 27, 2009. Only 33.3% of the public rental housing complexes surveyed constituted Residents Representative Committee. Most of the respondents showed negative perception of resident organizations and their roles as an meaningful way to communicate with them on the management system. Several ways to enhance the resident participation and to reduce housing and living cost burden of residents in public rental housing were suggested as follows: development and distribution of education and service program inspiring the residents' empowerment, enacting a provision of Tenants Representative obligation in Rental Housing Act, and so on.
