The father was not looking for a short-term solution.
He was looking for a place where his son could wake up every morning and continue living after his father was gone.
And he needed to know that the arrangement would be safe and sustainable.
According to ChosunBiz, there were instances in which Je-won entered facilities with difficulty but later had to leave. The challenge was especially serious because he was nonverbal and had severe autism-related support needs.
For Jeon, every rejection meant another question.
What happens when I die?
Who will know what my son needs?
Who will understand his behavior?
Who will recognize when something is wrong?
Who will make sure he is treated with dignity?
The questions became more urgent as Jeon's health declined.
Nearly 1,000 Calls and a Father's Refusal to Give Up
Jeon's search eventually became a campaign.
Reports say he contacted nearly 1,000 facilities while traveling around the country and documenting his experiences.
It would have been understandable for someone in his condition to give up.
He was seriously ill.
He was physically exhausted.
He was confronting his own mortality.
Yet he kept going.
He wrote about the process on the Korean blogging platform Brunch, documenting the reality that families like his faced.
His writing gave people a glimpse into a problem that is easy to overlook until it happens to your own family.
For parents of children with severe disabilities, childhood services can sometimes provide a framework of support.
But what happens when the child becomes an adult?
And what happens when the parent who has provided care for decades is no longer alive?
Those questions became the heart of Jeon's story.
His search was not only about finding one room or one institution.
It was about what kind of society could care for adults who cannot live independently when their parents are no longer able to protect them.
His Story Reached the Public
Jeon's story might have remained a deeply personal struggle if he had not begun sharing it publicly.
But his writing attracted attention.
In March 2026, his story was featured on MBC's True Story Investigation Team, bringing his situation to a much wider audience.
People who saw the broadcast began looking for ways to help.
The response grew rapidly.
Readers left thousands of supportive comments and contributed approximately 80 million won through donations, according to Korean media reports.
The amount was significant, but the emotional response was perhaps even more important.
For years, Jeon's problem had felt like a private burden.
Suddenly, thousands of strangers were saying:
We see you.
We understand your fear.
And we do not want your son to be left alone.
That support eventually helped make his biggest wish possible.
Je-won secured a place at Hope Green Village, an independent-living community for people with significant developmental disabilities in Jecheon, North Chungcheong Province.
For Jeon, this was not simply finding an address.
It was finding peace.
Hope Green Village Became the Answer
The name of the community itself carried an important meaning.
Jeon had spent years worrying about what would happen to his own “Peter Pan” when he was no longer around.
Now his son had somewhere to go.
A community where he could live with other people who also required support.
A place where his father did not have to be physically present every minute of every day for his son's basic security.
It did not erase the pain of Jeon's illness.
It did not make the future easy.
But it changed the central question.
The question was no longer:
“What happens to Je-won after Dad dies?”
There was finally an answer.
He would have a home.
And that allowed Jeon to begin thinking beyond his own son.