Reflections on the Human Condition - Api-fellowships.org

312 SESSION V
station, Nanba, Nipponbashi, and small parks. In
addition, homelessness rapidly increased in Yokohama,
Nagoya, Kyoto, and other cities. It can be said that the
main reason for homelessness was economic problems
that led to unemployment.
While the primary cause of homelessness was economic,
other factors were also implicated in the phenomenon.
Socially, family conflict and disputes sometimes made
people leave their families to find jobs. Because they
could not find permanent jobs, their income was
insufficient to afford housing, so they become homeless.
Sometimes complicating these problems were additional
issues related to drug abuse or alcohol abuse.
Another cause might be indebtedness within the
rural communities, which prompted people to leave
their home and become homeless. Yet another factor
responsible for homelessness in some cases was mental
illness. Finally, for a very small number of people,
homelessness might arise out of the personal desire to
live free outdoors.
Four Problems of the Homeless: Jobs, Housing, Food,
and Health
These are four basic needs for human beings, they
inter-relate and are clear. However, the study found
that some homeless had two mental problems. First,
some suffered from an inferiority complex. Most of the
homeless felt unaccepted by people and society, and
were sometimes even blatantly slighted. For instance,
some youth in Osaka threw sticks into the tents of the
homeless at night. Besides this, based on the looks and
treatment they received in public, such as on trains,
many homeless felt that society despises them. Second,
and arising from the first problem, when homeless
people felt inferior, they lived in loneliness, reticence
and unfriendliness. Some NGO workers said that this
state of mind was a mental illness resulting from having
no friends.
Policies and Roles of the Local Administrations in
Solving the Homelessness
From talking with and interviewing local officials in
Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya, it was discovered that the
policies and roles of the local administrations depended
on local social trends and the particular way in which
the problematic situation of homelessness has unfolded
in each of the local areas.
The problematic situation affected the opinion of the
authorities toward homelessness. Before 1994, the
Ref lections on the Human Condition: Change, Conflict and Modernity
The Work of the 2004/2005 API Fellows
authorities regarded the homeless as just a small group
of people compared to the whole population in urban
areas. Homelessness was therefore regarded as a problem
of minorities who were lazy, did not want to work and
were addicted to alcohol. As such, there was no policy
to provide them aid, and the role of the administrations
was simply to remove the homeless from public places.
Then, in 1994, an economic crisis resulted in an
increasing number of homeless. The authorities began
to review their opinions and methods for solving the
problem. A senior official at Tokyo City Hall who
worked for the social welfare of the homeless said that
the authorities began to accept that homelessness was a
genuine social problem in 1994.
Nevertheless, even though the authorities began to
accept that homelessness is a very real social problem,
their policy and role changed very little. Forced
displacement was still carried out. The removing of 200
homeless who slept at the Shinjuku Railway Station in
1996 was covered by the media and was criticized by
the public, which made the authorities begin to adjust
their policies and role toward the homeless.
As for social trends, these changed following the
acknowledgement that homelessness was a genuine
structural problem. At first, society tended to view
the homeless as a small, problematic group of people
who were lazy, irresponsible, mentally ill, and addicted
to alcohol and gambling. But after 1994, when the
number of homeless people expanded to appear in all
public places—railway stations, riversides, streets and
building niches—society began to feel conscious of, and
unsafe because of, the homeless. At the same time, some
social groups such as academics, mass media and NGO
workers began to conduct research on the background,
way of life, problems and needs of the homeless in
order to present this information to society. The main
point that these groups presented to society was that
homelessness was the product of a capitalist society—a
competitive society in which the strong are the winners
and the weak are the losers, forcing everyone to struggle
to win in order to have a happy life. The losers have to
live in misery and may eventually become homeless.
Though public opinion varied regarding homelessness,
the common point that developed to become the
dominant social trend was to demand that the authorities
accept homelessness as a social problem requiring a
solution that should entail having a policy, measures
and plans. Particularly after the forced removal of the
homeless from Shinjuku Railway Station in 1996,
public opinion played a role in pushing the authorities
to change their policy and role toward the homeless.