Japan Press Weekly

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2009 January 28 - February 3 [JCP]

JCP is always responsive to the needs of the public

One day in December 2008, when Japanese Communist Party members of the Kashiwa City Assembly in Chiba Prefecture were having a lunch break in the JCP assembly members’ office, a blood-stained man walked in. He was obviously in pain. He said a homeless friend of his had told him to “go to the JCP” if he is in any trouble.

The JCP in the city assembly promptly helped him to enter a hospital for medical treatment and find a place for him to live.

No money, no medicine

Niiyama Sadahiko (pseudonym), 59, is a homeless man. He used to work at an ironworks and then at a construction site, but became jobless in October last year due to the economic downturn. On December 9, he fell down the stairs in a variety store in Kashiwa City, Chiba Prefecture. He had head injuries and acute pain in his arm.

Taken to a hospital in an ambulance, Niiyama received examination and emergency treatment. The doctor told him that his nerve system from his arm to his neck was damaged, but Niiyama could not buy the prescribed medication because he had no money. Enduring the pain, Niiyama visited the Kashiwa City Office and asked for help. However, at that time of year, all accommodations for the needy were full due to the rapid increase in the number of unemployed at the end of the year.

No one at the city office advised Niiyama to apply for welfare assistance. A city office employee gave him a small amount of money and a prepaid phone card so that he ccould call his brother in his hometown for help.

On December 11, when Niiyama visited the office of the JCP Members’ Group of the Kashiwa City Assembly, he was in great pain. A JCP city assembly member immediately discussed the matter with an administrator of Kashiwa City Hospital who happened to be standing by to answer questions in the assembly. The administrator agreed to hospitalize Niiyama.

Negotiating with hospital

As soon as the JCP Tokatsu District Committee received a call from the JCP city assembly members’ group, it dispatched a car to take Niiyama to the hospital from the municipal building. Right after the plenary session was over, JCP Kashiwa City Assembly member Hirano Koichi went to the hospital and negotiated with the hospital staff to allow Niiyama to stay overnight in the hospital. With help from a landlord who is a JCP supporter, they secured an apartment for him. On the next day, they applied for welfare assistance at the municipal office which promised to start providing Niiyama with the benefit before the end of the year.

Niiyama had never exercised his voting rights and had not been very interested in politics. He had a strong distrust in government administration and in people in general. But, looking at JCP members who were folding flyers for distribution at Hirano’s office, he said, “I can learn a lot of things from JCP assembly members.”

Going to municipal office

Several days after the rescue operation for Niiyama, an e-mail came to JCP Kashiwa City Assembly member Watanabe Kazuko. The sender wrote: “I’m always thinking about committing suicide. Suicide is my only option. Please help me.”

It was an SOS signal from a day laborer. He had no job. After running out of money, unable to pay his rent, he was thrown out of his apartment.

Watanabe immediately called his mobile phone.

Tanimachi Goro (pseudonym), 45, used to work for a foreign-owned firm. Remembering his friend telling him before that JCP members were kind enough to help him, he used all the money he had to go to an internet café and sent the e-mail to several city assembly members, including Democratic Party members and independents. Watanabe was the only local assembly member that responded to Tanimachi’s e-mail.

Having an experience of working in the U.S., Tanimachi’s annual salary was nearly 10 million yen. He left the company two years ago and began to work as a day laborer. But he could no longer find jobs since last November and became homeless on December 6. While he visited the municipal office for public assistance, he was told that he is too young to be on welfare assistance.

Watanabe asked her colleague Hirano to look for an apartment for Tanimachi and took him to the municipal office. The office had refused to accept Tanimachi’s application for welfare benefits claiming that he does not have an address, but caving in to Watanabe’s insistence, it finally accepted it.

Tanimachi is now looking for a job every day. When asked by Hirano to join the JCP by saying, “We want you to use your experience and abilities to change society,” he immediately decided to become a JCP member.

On its website, the JCP Tokatsu District Committee made public its phone number, fax number, and e-mail address, informing viewers that everyone can “use them to contact us for consultation.”

On January 24, at Hirano’s request, local JCP members gathered and discussed about how they can quickly respond to the increasing number of requests for consultations from those who are having difficulties continuing to make living. They now offer a place where residents can directly ask for help.