Japan Press Weekly

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2010 December 15 - 21 [LABOR]

A surge in homeless young people

Amid the busiest month of December, the number of homeless young people is rapidly increasing in Tokyo and Osaka. Most of them stay in all-night establishment such as Internet cafes.

An incorporated nonprofit organization (NPO), called the Big Issue Foundation, recently released its White Paper on Young Homeless illustrating the results of interviews with homeless people in their 20s and 30s.

The average age of the interviewees was 32.3. More than 50% of them were on the streets for the relatively short time of less than six months. They escaped homelessness as soon as they managed to find a job.

Sano Shoji, a board of trustees of the NPO, writes in the preface of the White Paper, “I was shocked by the fact that about half of the applicants who wanted to sell the Big Issue Japan Magazine were in their 20s and 30s.”

Salespeople in Tokyo had a mean age of 56 in July 2008 and 45 in July 2010. “Increasing numbers of younger people are becoming homeless. This affects the very foundation of Japanese society and is of grave concern,” Sano stated.

More than 70 percent of the young homeless people became homeless due to work-related reasons such as quitting their jobs, being fired, termination of their temporary-work contracts, and bankruptcies of places of employment. The White Paper points out, “They became homeless when they lost their jobs, or they ended up living on the streets because they could not pay the rent after being laid off.”

A majority said they were from financially difficult families and had low educational backgrounds. The White Paper states, “Many of them were already in a disadvantageous situation when they began working.”

Those who changed jobs at least five times since first being employed accounted for about 50 percent of the respondents. “Many homeless people acquire insecure jobs, including temporary work at assembly plants. As a result, they cannot acquire higher job skills,” the White Paper points out.

A 31-year-old man from Mie Prefecture told an Akahata reporter that he dropped out of his evening high school. “I couldn’t study and work at the same time because I had to work until eight in the evening,” he explained.

At the age of 20, he went to Osaka after his parents divorced. He said, “I worked at manufacturing factories making electronic components or had guard jobs, but these were all insecure jobs. I’ve never been hired as a regular worker.”

Four years ago, he came to Tokyo looking for a job. However, the only job available for him was as a day-laborer at construction sites. He was told that he would earn 150,000 yen a month but the amount he received was next to nothing after fees for the dormitory room and meals were taken out of his wages. He said, “I was told that I was no longer needed and was kicked out of the construction camp (hanba).”

Inoue Naoto of the National Young Judicial Scrivener Council stated, “The government must take preventive measures and provide support before people become homeless. There are many things that the authorities can do. They can provide public housing and give public livelihood assistance to those living on the streets. Government institutions must provide support for people even if they fall into the red.”
- Akahata, December 20, 2010