ed ’Kings of Saving’

70 homeless send message of hope, courage

When it comes to saving, people often bring back the memory of reading one of Aesop’s fables, “the Ant and the Grasshopper.” The lesson from the story is that one has to save money for a rainy day. It is important to save even when people are not making very much.

As such, it is pleasing to hear that there are some people who are practicing the lesson more faithfully than anyone else. They are neither high-income professionals nor owners of family-run conglomerates. Surprisingly, they are 70 homeless people who were cited as the “Kings of Saving” by the Seoul metropolitan government.

Their zeal for saving is exceptional. They are saving around 57 percent of what they make. The figure is very impressive, given that the nation’s overall household savings rate stood at 3.9 percent last year. The rate once reached over 20 percent in the early 1990s. But it has nose-dived because consumers’ purchasing power has continued to weaken.

The story of the homeless representing the ant is all the more touching as they are sowing the seeds of hope for a new life through saving. They were once a sort of grasshopper. Most of them became penniless living on the street after failure in business and investment. One of them is a Filipino woman who ran away from her violent Korean husband.

They were among 1,220 homeless who live in 23 shelters in Seoul. They saved a combined total of 260 million won ($217,000) between April and November last year. This means that each of them saved 470,000 won per month out of their monthly income of 820,000 won. What’s more significant than the amount is that they have been making desperate efforts to get out of trouble.

Many of them once thought of killing themselves before they moved to the shelters and began working under rehabilitation programs. No one can better understand the importance of saving than the exemplary homeless. For them, saving is the best way of ending their homeless life. Their savings are the direct result of their toil.

More than anything else, the Kings of Saving have demonstrated their can-do spirit. They have made a new beginning with the firm belief that they have nothing more to lose. Their pessimism has finally turned into optimism, making it possible to overcome their despair and suffering. They now send a message of hope and courage. The more they save, the brighter their hope becomes.

Of course, savings alone are not a cure-all. But they can be a starting point and a big step to bringing the homeless back to normal life. We hope that our society will better reach out to those in need to help them lead a new, happy life.