Legal Tasks for Constructing Continuing Care Retirement Community(CCRC)

Abstract

Providing an appropriate residential environment for the elderly, who spend most of their time in their residence, is one of the most important tasks facing the aging society. In particular, the elderly’s physical function may deteriorate quickly, which makes it necessary to provide a residential environment that can cover everything from being able to live independently to being in need of medical care. In Korea, various housing policies for the elderly have been promoted based on the Elderly Welfare Act; however, pre-sale elderly welfare housing no longer exists due to disruptive operation, and silver town has become a place where only the wealthy can enter. In addition, nursing homes are considered as unwelcome facilities for the elderly which isolate them from society. Accordingly, some local governments in Korea have recently been actively promoting the introduction of the Continuing Care Retirement Community(CCRC), which has developed in the US at the level of “aging in place.” In this study, domestic implications were examined by referring to US, where CCRC first began, and Japan, which has recently actively promoted CCRC in order to revitalize the region. Although CCRC in US was established naturally in the market, Korean state authorities have actively intervened through the legal system to stabilize the elderly’s residence by considering that one contracting party is an elderly. In US, most of the CCRCs are operated by the private sector, as it is characterized by the establishment of a legal system not only to protect consumers but also to stabilize its management. In Japan, it is notable that the CCRC’s initiative itself is being carried out to overcome low birth rates and aging societies and to revitalize local areas to overcome problems caused by the concentration of population in the metropolitan area. Therefore, Japan’s legal system focuses not on management stability, but on the contents of the service and the eligibility of housing of the elderly. However, there is a fundamental difference from Korea’s elderly-related law system for low-income families, for it has legal system that oversees the residential environment of the elderly separably from the Elderly Welfare Act.