Transforming Youth Opportunities: Kimpo’s Y-STEP Program for Jobs and Housing

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[iNews24 reporter Lee Sang-wan] On April 1, Bae Kang-min, a Democratic Party candidate for Gimpo mayor, unveiled a youth policy platform centered on the Gimpo Youth First-Step Guarantee (Y-STEP), a package designed to support young residents from workforce entry through long-term settlement.

Bae criticized Gimpo’s current youth policies as largely formal and lacking substance. He said the city must stop treating young people as passive recipients and instead elevate them as active partners in policymaking.

The Gimpo Youth First-Step Guarantee (Y-STEP) is an integrated program that promises young people in Gimpo their first job, first home, and first meaningful opportunity to participate in civic life.

Specifically, the plan includes: the First-Step Job Pass, which provides hiring incentives for local companies; the First-Home Safety Pass, which offers housing subsidies for young people and supplies remodeled rental units; and the First-Participation Governance, which enables youth to participate directly in budgeting and policy evaluation.

Bae said he will establish a committee-style advisory system that requires officials to review youth input before policies are presented to the mayor, institutionalizing youth political participation.

He added that this system will grant genuine authority to young people, moving beyond token consultation to policies shaped by youth rather than an administrative monologue.

As a practical transportation measure, he pledged to introduce a Gimpo Transit Pass linking the subway, buses, bicycles and micro-mobility options such as e-scooters.

Bae argued that young people need immediately perceptible transportation benefits and offered feasible, near-term solutions.

He criticized the closure of Gurae Changgong, saying officials should have pursued operational innovation instead of shutting the facility down.

As an alternative, he pledged to remodel the city’s idle facilities to create decentralized youth spaces in the northern and downtown districts and to implement a public–private co-governance model that returns operating authority to young people.

Bae said that during more than eight years as vice chair of the city council, he worked on the ground to address citizens’ daily problems and learned how policy functions in practice. “I will make Gimpo a city where young people no longer feel compelled to choose Seoul because of transportation and housing issues, and where the commute marks the start of opportunity, not fatigue,” he said.

Meanwhile, Bae Kang-min currently serves as vice chair of the 8th Gimpo City Council. He holds a master’s degree in public administration from Yonsei University’s Graduate School of Public Administration and has served as a special commissioner on the Presidential Committee for Balanced National Development, among other roles. He is regarded as an expert in administration and public policy.