On Saturday, 5 September, members of Seoul Hanmaum Rotary Club joined Habitat for Humanity Korea’s Korea Blitz Build in Chuncheon. What we got from it is a great example of what our Heart of Seoul campaign is trying to say: a home whose value comes from the hours a family puts into it.
Heart of Seoul · Hands-on Service · September 2026
On 5 September, members of Seoul Hanmaum Rotary Club joined Habitat for Humanity Korea’s Korea Blitz Build (KBB) in Chuncheon. We came home with the clearest example yet of what our Heart of Seoul campaign is trying to say.
What we heard first
Earlier this year we asked 89 people across our community what Seoul needs most. Housing came first. What stayed with us, though, was the language people used.
“Excessively high prices, a show-off culture, and an ‘as long as it isn’t me’ selfishness combine to keep driving prices up.”
Shin Hyun-sang, Heart of Seoul survey respondent
Underneath the answers sat a belief: a home is proof of success, and anything other than owning an apartment reads as failure. That belief, more than any single policy, is what keeps the pressure in place.
Two hours east of Seoul, we saw a house built on a very different idea.
The day
KBB is Habitat for Humanity Korea’s annual blitz build: several homes raised in a few days by rotating teams of volunteers working alongside the families who will live in them.
Three of us went: Ray, Jay and Sae Yan. Habitat put us on a team with volunteers from other parts of the country, most of them strangers to us that morning, and sent us up the scaffolding of one of the houses to nail wall panels onto the timber frame. In Jay's words, a few days later:
“It was hot and physically challenging, but working and sweating together actually helped us bond really quickly as a team. It was also really nice that everyone there was so kind and warm, which made the whole experience even more enjoyable. One of my teammates even works near my office, so we’re having lunch together next week haha. It was my first time actually using nails and a hammer to build a wall, so it felt both exciting and meaningful. Knowing that even my small contribution would become a real part of someone’s home made the experience especially memorable. It was definitely worth trying.”
Jay, SHRC member
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Three hundred hours and zero interest
The site team lead walked us through the two rules behind every Habitat home.
The first is sweat equity, 땀의 분담. The family puts 300 hours of their own labour into building the house, alongside the volunteers.
The second is interest-free repayment, 무이자 상환. The family repays the construction cost over time, with no interest, so nobody earns a return on this house.
Habitat serves families in real need, and one build in Chuncheon changes nothing about prices in Seoul. It does show, however, that in Korea, today, a home's value can come from the hours put into it and the life lived in it. Heart of Seoul is about making that way of seeing a home visible.
In their words
The house our members helped raise on 5 September will be home to a family of five. Habitat for Humanity Korea passed on the words of the future homeowner. The family is completing the 300 hours of sweat equity that every Habitat household contributes before moving in, expected from December 2026 once the house is finished.
“First of all, I am very grateful to be moving into a Habitat home. Having a home of your own brings a great sense of stability to life. With three children, we had to move every two or four years, and it is a relief that we no longer have to.
What makes this house special is that it carries the work and the heart of many people whose faces I have never seen. I receive this house as more than a gift; I receive it with a debt of gratitude.
Our family will keep sweating on build sites, and we will live in this house as good neighbours. And one day, I will be the person who picks up a hammer for another family waiting for a home, as we once waited.”
성O환 (name partly withheld by Habitat), future homeowner, 2026 Chuncheon Hope Build, shared by Habitat for Humanity Korea
In the family’s own words, in Korean:
“먼저 해비타트 주택에 입주하게 되어 너무 감사합니다. 내 집이 있다는 것은 삶에 큰 안정감을 가져다 준다고 생각합니다. 세명의 아이들과 2년 또는 4년마다 이사를 다니는 어려움이 있었는데, 이제는 그러지 않아도 되어서 너무 좋습니다.
이 집이 또한 특별한 이유는 얼굴도 모르는 많은 분들의 수고와 마음이 담겨 있다는 것입니다. 저는 이 집을 선물로만 받지 않고, 빚진 마음으로 받겠습니다.
앞으로 저희 가족도 건축 현장에서 함께 땀 흘리고, 이 집에서 좋은 이웃으로 살아가겠습니다. 그리고 언젠가 저희처럼 집을 기다리는 또 다른 가정을 위해 망치를 드는 사람이 되겠습니다.”
성O환 님, 2026 춘천 희망의 집짓기 입주 예정자 (한국해비타트 제공)
For this family, a home means stability for three children who used to move every two years, and a debt of gratitude they intend to repay with their own hands, on the next family’s build site. That is the change in what a home means that Heart of Seoul set out to find.
What we took home
What we brought back from Chuncheon is a reference point: proof that another way of valuing a house exists and works.
This autumn, the work comes back into the city. With 함께웃는세상 (With World), we will take on home repair and renovation in Seoul. With LBTO, we will run our first financial literacy workshops for 자립준비청년, young people leaving care and preparing for independence, the group our survey identified as most exposed to the pressure we described above.
Our thanks to Habitat for Humanity Korea, to Ms. Cho Yun-kyung, Head of the Partnership Division, and to the KBB site team.
If you want to be on site with us next time, or help deliver a workshop, write to us. More about the initiative on the Heart of Seoul page, and the full survey results are here.
Photos: Lois Momen Studio for Habitat for Humanity Korea, and SHRC members.