SITUATION OF HOMELESS PEOPLE IN JAPAN

Kogure Yasuhisa (in regency, Jesuit Social Center)

*Cooking for the Homeless in Shibuya

 Every Saturday evening a group of more than 30 homeless and volunteers gather together to prepare food for people living in the streets. Although nobody takes the initiative the preparations proceed smoothly, step by step. The food is prepared within a peaceful atmosphere for about 160 people every time. This is, usually, a spectacle of the group "Nojiren" in Shibuya and the Mitake public park. The cooking goes steadily on, every week, no matter a typhoon comes or snow falls down. This is because to eat is an import!ant reality for the homeless companions and everybody is conscious of that.

Consequently, many come to participate in the cooking together. People feel naturally joy by doing something together. Cutting vegetables or washing pots, people tell jokes and old stories. That way, facing each other, little by little, human relations are mutually built.

 The first time I visited the Mitake Park was in the year 2000, before entering the Jesuits. It is about 8 years ago. Later, I was unable to show up and during these 8 years old companions disappeared and new ones came in, but there was no change in the continuation of cooking together for people living in the street. Nevertheless, I feel that the basic situation of homeless people had not changed during the last 8 years.

 What has really changed? What is remaining the same? I want to think about it, by offering some concrete cases of homeless people living in the street now.



*Special legislation regarding the homeless and its social results

 While I was in the Jesuit Novitiate in Hiroshima I accustomed to participate, once a week, in the patrolling activities of a local organization. It was at the time of a new legislation (July 2002) that was supposed to assist homeless people to become independent and in order to implement it, a national survey was taken (January 2003). In fact, I helped with the hearing of the survey in Hiroshima, under the responsibility of the group working with the homeless.

 In reference to the above mentioned legislation, time before the legislation became into effect, there were great discussions with regard to the pros and cons among homeless organizations and their supporters, especially concerning the problematic issues involved.

 There are mainly three issues to be considered:

 1. The new legislation avoids reference to the government's responsibility with regard to employment, main cause of homelessness, and looks for answers only from the point of view of "getting out from the street." In order to accomplish it, the self-responsibility of the homeless and their self-efforts are stressed. Such legislation imposes arbitrary independence on them.

 2. By homeless, it is understood those persons sleeping and living in parks and along the rivers, in other words, "homeless resident in tents." As a result, "non-resident homeless," for instance, the "moving-type ones" that carrying carton boxes change locations to sleep at night are in danger of not meeting the legal conditions of homelessness and thus are not covered by policies and activities meant to support homeless people. On the other hand, those persons that could come into a broader definition of "homeless," like people that have been accepted as daily workers and live in temporary shelters, and again, daily workers living in cheap resting houses or the new type of young people sent daily to different job sites but spending the nights in "net-coffee shops," and that could easily fall any time into a homeless situation, all such persons are kept totally in the dark in the new legislation. As a result, the problems concerning the homeless become all divided and there is a danger that the answer to unemployment and labor issues, the basic causes of homelessness are left out without a definite answer.

 3. According to article 11 on a fair solution, the administration authorities managing the public parks have the duty to take the necessary steps (compulsory evictions) to impose a reasonable use of public facilities in combination with rehabilitation centers and shelters that promote self-assistance independence.

 The especial legislation regarding the homeless was implemented 5 years ago, in 2002. This legislation has a 10-year time limit and consequently expires at the end of this 2007 fiscal year, when a 'revision' has to take place. A number of homeless organizations point out the problems of the actual legislation and are demanding its total basic revision. In fact, the problems involved in this legislation have become a reality during the last 5 years, with regard to the concrete policies that have been set later concerning local official organizations and their implementation.

*Case Study in Tokyo (1) Activities of Self-support Centers

 To begin with Tokyo, the problem of homeless visibly appeared in Tokyo (the underground of the West exit of Shinjuku Station: the carton boxes n.4 village), ahead of other regions, as a result of the business slump brought about after the collapse of the bubble economy, in 1993. Municipal Tokyo, before the legislation about the homeless was fixed, had experienced concrete steps to establish "policies for people living in the streets," like compulsory evictions (1996), self retire after the fire of 1998, opening of a provisional center in Kitashinjuku, the self-support center (2000) and the temporary urgent shelters in the year 2001.

 Temporary urgent shelters built one after the other starting 2001 were: Ota, Itabashi, Edogawa, Arakawa and Chiyoda Residences. The Ota Residence is closed at present, but a new one has been built in Setagaya. Their full capacity is for 454 persons. People of the 23 wards that live out in the streets are temporarily taken care of and receive rehabilitation sessions. The centers run surveys of the residents in order to perform better services to the homeless, by getting acquainted with their real situations and assess at the same time the programs they are implementing. As a rule, people are allowed to stay in the centers for a month, receiving their daily food, clothing and necessary daily goods. The centers do not provide them with cash, but they offer other goods, like tobacco also. As for the assessment, it means that they look into the issue of watching whether the homeless can really use the self-support centers built for them.

 The self-support assistant centers were started in the year 2000 with the Taito and Shinjuku Residences, followed by Toshima, Sumida (2001) and Shibuya (2002). Four have been closed and there remain 5 centers (Shibuya, Kita, Chuo, Suginami and Katsushika) open. Their capacity is of about 326 persons. As a rule and as a result of the assessment done at the temporary urgent shelters, they are built to implement self-assistance programs in three main fields: life, job and social life assistance for expected users that staying at the self-support centers could be able to look for jobs by themselves. There is a 2-month limit for the use of those facilities and only once can be used. In other words, they are only given one chance and that means "I provide you with a roof and within 2 months do your best to find a job." In case they cannot find a job within 2 months they must get out of the residence. Where to go? The street is the only place available.

 Well, "unemployment" is the cause of homelessness and, actually, the average age of the homeless companions forced to live in the streets is around 60-year-old. Confronted with this reality is easy to imagine how difficult would it be to find a common every day job that could provide them with sufficient income to afford the rent of an apartment. Only by the private efforts of those workers that do not have any reliable person around, self-reliance could not be an answer. It is clear that unless the structural labor and social problems involved are solved there are no basic solutions.

 The Tokyo municipal Welfare and Health department that functions as the body to implement official policies for the whole self-assistance system of homeless people exists, in fact, as an organization that takes care of only one part of them, i.e. "young people who, relatively, have the capacity to find new jobs." Tokyo City also recognizes that residents of self-assistance centers able to find jobs cannot enjoy a very stable situation afterwards.

 Use for a while your imagination.

"Suppose that you are living homeless in a park or under a bridge. Since you were young you accustomed to work as temporary construction worker, but you reached 60 years and nobody cares to employ you. The only income you have comes from the selling of aluminum cans. Now, to be able to sell them you must find a place to stock them and, at present, you only have a corner in a public park. There is, practically, not a single day when you could afford 3 meals, but you can go on, somehow, living day after day. Welfare officials advise you to use the "self-assistance center," but since you do not have any temporary daily job, even if you enter the center, at your age it will be totally impossible to find any ordinary job. Now, suppose that you enter the temporary and the self-support centers. Your tent in the park and the space to keep your aluminum cans there will be dismantled, following the stipulations of the new legislation and a fence will be set up so that you will not be able to bring your tent there anymore. You try to do your best, but you cannot find any job and after a period of three months you are told to leave the center and since you lost the basis you had before in the park you will not be able to eat selling cans as before. How to survive from now on?"

* 출처 및 링크 : 아시아NGO센터 http://asianngocenter.net/AsaBoard/asaboard_show.php?bn=asia&fmlid=701&pkid=841

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