What Seoul's Maeum Convenience Stores Are — and Aren't

Seoul is running 19 community spaces across the capital where residents who feel lonely or socially isolated can sit down, talk, and be pointed toward professional help. Dubbed 'Seoul Maeum Convenience Stores' — a play on the ubiquitous Korean convenience store — the venues are not shops. 'Maeum' means mind or heart in Korean.

The spaces, housed inside 17 community welfare centers and two support centers for single-person households, began operating in March 2025 and are open to any Seoul resident, including foreign nationals. Visitors can take a short self-assessment on loneliness, speak with staff or with people who have personal experience of isolation, and receive referrals to counseling, welfare services, or community programs that fit their needs.

Beyond conversation, the centers offer instant noodles, exercise equipment, and district-specific programs meant to help people meet one another. The 19 locations are spread across 13 districts, including Gwanak-gu, Dongdaemun-gu, Gangbuk-gu, Songpa-gu and Seongdong-gu.

Why the City Borrowed the Convenience-Store Name

The 'Convenience Store' Brand Is the Point

The name is deliberate. Convenience stores are among the most familiar, least intimidating spaces in Seoul — everywhere, open long hours, with no social obligation attached. Borrowing that language for a mental-health space is a way to lower the barrier to walking in, and to sidestep the stigma that still surrounds seeking help for emotional distress in South Korea.

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A Quiet Response to a Lonelier City

The program speaks to a broader social shift. Single-person households now make up a large share of Seoul's population, and social isolation has become a recognized policy concern in the country. Spaces like these are a low-cost municipal answer: they do not replace professional treatment, but they give people who are not in crisis a first step — a conversation, a referral, a routine.

The inclusion of foreign residents is notable. New arrivals often lack local support networks and may not know how to navigate Korean welfare services, so a referral point inside a familiar public building can be unusually valuable.

Still, scale is the open question. Nineteen centers across a city of more than nine million people is a modest footprint, and how well they work will depend on awareness, staff quality, and follow-through on referrals — details the city has not yet published.

How Residents Can Use the 19 Centres

The centres are open to any Seoul resident experiencing loneliness, including foreign nationals, and are designed as a first point of contact rather than a medical service.

  • Who can use them: Any Seoul resident, including foreign residents; the project has been running since March 2025.
  • What happens inside: A loneliness self-assessment, conversation with staff or people who have experienced social isolation, and referrals to counseling, welfare services or community programs.
  • Where to find them: 17 community welfare centres and two single-person household support centres across 13 districts, including Gwanak-gu, Dongdaemun-gu, Gangbuk-gu and Songpa-gu.
  • For newcomers: Foreign residents unfamiliar with Korea's welfare system can use the centres as an entry point to support services instead of navigating them alone.