JAPAN: Thousands Homeless in Old Age, Right in Tokyo

TOKYO (The Malaysia Star), October 20, 2005: Kanji Takahashi lives in the heart of Tokyo, next to a cluster of government ministries and just a short walk from the posh Ginza shopping district. But the 62-year-old’s home is a makeshift tent of blue vinyl sheets and scrap wood, built in a park. Takahashi, and around 100 other homeless park dwellers, are living proof that Japan’s once-egalitarian society is showing its cracks. “If you’re over 60, there’s no work,” said Takahashi, a former construction worker who has been unemployed for nearly 10 years, as he set up his tent and prepared for another evening outdoors in one of the world’s wealthiest cities. According to the Welfare Ministry, housed in a building overlooking the park, there were some 25,000 homeless in Japan in February 2003, when it last conducted a survey, but support groups say the actual figure is about twice as high. In Tokyo alone, about 6,700 live in parks and along riverbanks, many scraping a living from collecting cans and cardboard boxes, a reminder that even in the world’s second biggest economy, many are falling through the safety net. A Japanese homeless man in his makeshift dwelling covered with a blue vinyl sheet, amid a collection of his belongings at a Tokyo park. While the Japanese economy has been steadily recovering in recent years and the unemployment rate has declined from the peak of 5.4% reached in 2002, the homeless have not benefited from the improvement, experts say. “There has not been a sharp increase or a sharp decrease in the number of homeless. We continue to see a slight rise,” said Shoji Sano, co-founder of Big Issue Japan, which publishes the Japanese edition of the street newspaper, first conceived in Britain as a way to help the homeless rebuild their lives. The bulk of Japan’s homeless are former day labourers at construction sites who lost their jobs after Japan’s asset-inflated “bubble economy” burst in the early 1990s. Left to fend for themselves for a decade, they failed to keep up with changes in society, like the spread of computers, and with many now in their 50s – the national average is 56 – there are few employment opportunities. “If you’re in your 50s or 60s, openings are limited to cleaning jobs or security guards,” said Masayuki Komata, who is in charge of an “independence support centre” for the homeless run by the Tokyo metropolitan government. There are five such facilities in the capital providing shelter and job-finding assistance. At Komata’s centre, a tidy two-storey building located inconspicuously under an elevated expressway, over 84% of those who arrive do find jobs. But even Komata admits that the centres, which can only accommodate a total of around 370 people, do not have the capacity to cope with the thousands of homeless in the city. Experts say recent calls for the government to cut spending to tackle a mountain of public debt – the worst level among industrialised nations – may hit society’s most vulnerable, including the homeless. Small government was the buzz word in last month’s general election. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s ruling party, which advocated the privatisation of the postal system as part of efforts to slim down the public sector, won a landslide victory. Japanese homeless men receiving bags containing bread from a charitable group at a park in central Tokyo.“There will be a conflict soon between rising welfare costs and the need for a small government,” said Tom Gill, a social anthropologist at Meiji Gakuin University near Tokyo. “I am concerned about what will happen. There is a possibility that it may lead to an increase of the homeless.” Opposition parties have criticised Koizumi’s policy, saying it will only benefit the rich and widen the gap between the haves and the have nots. According to a February study by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, Japan’s poverty rate – the percentage of households with an income less than half the national average – stands at 15.3%, nearly double the figure from 10 years ago and the world’s fifth highest. Experts say the government’s homeless policy has improved drastically in the decade or so since the issue surfaced, citing a 2002 law aimed at helping the homeless return to society. But they also say more needs to be done. Hiroyuki Fukuhara, a professor of labour economics at Osaka City University, said the government needs to find ways to prevent those without jobs from ending up on the streets, such as providing them with vocational training as some European countries are doing. “It is only providing measures to support the homeless, and even that is not enough,” Fukuhara said. But while the homeless camping out in parks have become a familiar sight, there are hardly any beggars in Japan as most are able to live off the wealth of the rest of the country. Takahashi says he has no source of income and doesn’t bother to seek cash by collecting cans, for example. “I just go to Ginza and scavenge for leftovers,” he said. By George Nishiyama, Reuters © 1995-2005 Star Publications (Malaysia) Bhd