Reflections on the Human Condition - Api-fellowships.org

debt. Particularly, their poor financial state drives them
to be homeless. While it is still less mentioned, my indepth
study proves that this is one factor that pushes
them to be homeless which is also hard to overcome.
Development Policies and the Homeless Movement
in Tokyo
First Period: The Eviction Policy (1992-1997)
The first period is when the number of homeless people
increased until it became visible in Tokyo in 1992-1993.
Initially, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG)
and its citizens refused to accept the homeless problem
caused by social and economic systems and there was no
policy to respond to the increasing homelessness.
At that time, the homeless were managed by evicting
them away from public areas; especially when the
homeless spread from Sanya, on the northeast of Tokyo,
to Shinjuku Station and other business areas of Tokyo.
In late 1993, TMG formed the joint committee to
study the problem of street dwellers with 23 wards
administers; but it was not efficient because there were
different situations among the 23 wards. 7
On February 17, 1994, the first eviction took place at
Shinjuku Station, the danboru [cardboard box] houses
were removed without any protest from the homeless
and the homeless were moved to a temporary shelter for
four weeks. However this was the starting point of the
homeless movement in Tokyo. 8 After this incident, an
organized support emerged for the homeless to go back
to the station again.
On January 24, 1996, another eviction was conducted
at Shinjuku Station. It differed from that of two years
earlier because the homeless people protested the
eviction this time. The protest did not succeed because
200 homeless people were evicted by 820 police officers.
This incident became a big news reported by media i.e.
television, newspaper. These reports reflected the public
concern about the homeless people and it criticized
the government’s violence. 9 The effect of the eviction
concluded that:
1. The public denied the government’s violent
measures toward the homeless.
2. After the large-scale operation in early period, the
government started to avoid using violence and a
large-scale eviction operation because the media
will report. However, small eviction continued.
3. The homeless and supporters presented their
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problems through the media to the public;
especially “give me a job” appeal made the public
understand the cause of unemployment of the
homeless; that is, they are not lazy, they just need
to work, but there are no jobs for them.
4. The impact from the policy is not acknowledged
because the government still uses temporary
shelter, Sakura ryo [Sakura dormitory], where
the homeless are unwilling to stay on. At the
beginning, the government had no specific existing
policy to refer to, to support homeless people.
The only applicable policy to help the homeless
was seikatsu hogo [welfare public assistance]. As I
earlier pointed, only old homeless and chronically
ill people can claim seikatsu hogo and live in the
dormitory or cheap hotel. Most are not willing
to live in temporary shelters; a lot still living in
public place. 10
Second Period: Jiritsu shien Center and Homeless Law
2002
The idea of Jiritsu shien [Supporting Self-Reliance]
center started after a big fire broke out at the cardboard
box village at Shinjuku Station. Four homeless people
were killed in the morning of February 7, 1998. The
organization of homeless people in Tokyo demanded
the public support for houses, jobs and welfare, and
demanded that the government arranges various options
for them (Jiritsu shien center was just one of them). 11
The principle of Jiritsu shien center is to support the
homeless in a long term by encouraging them to work
and be self-reliant (Jiritsu=self-reliance, shien=support).
This concept was developed from the failure of the use
of temporary shelter such as the Sakura ryo; because
the homeless do not want to live in a dormitory-style
accommodation and unwilling to rely on the food
from the shelter. They need to work and survive by
themselves. The TMG came up with the idea to set up
the center to support the homeless people to find a job
for a long period. The difference between the shelter
and the Jiritsu shien center is that the center provides
a program to help the homeless to find a job and a
consultant to give them advice.
The process of this program consists of two steps. The
first step is that everyone needs to live in the shelter
for a month. In the shelter, everyone will be assessed
and divided into three groups. The first group is for the
people who can work and want to work. This group
proceeds to the second step that is the Jiritsu shien
center. The second group is for the people who cannot
work because of injury or old age; they are advised to
Ref lections on the Human Condition: Change, Conflict and Modernity
The Work of the 2004/2005 API Fellows