ABSTRACT

The senior citizen hall (SCH) is a leisure welfare facility for the older adults that can be easily accessed and/or used anywhere in the community, including urban and rural areas. However, the proportion of the older adults using the SCH has recently been decreasing for a variety of reasons. In order to find some ways to revitalize the SCH, a survey was conducted targeting 465 community-dwelling Seoulites who were economically inactive and did not use the SCH. They were asked what the most time-consuming daily routine was, why they did not visit SCH, whether there are programs that they would like the SCH to run, and what were the requisites for SCH that they would like to visit. As a result of analyzing the responses, first of all, the majority of the respondents considered the daily activity which they spent most of time as leisure or exercise. In addition, the primary reasons for not visiting the SCH were mostly related to the negative images of the SCH (e.g., perceiving the SCH as a place for the vulnerable older adults). Based on the findings, some ways (e.g., providing programs for community-dwellers including the older adults, offering a complimentary light meal for visitors around lunchtime, etc.) to develop the SCH into a space that integrates the local community were discussed in this paper.