POINT OF VIEW/ Makoto Yuasa鐃緒申Reality of poverty problem needs to be known 03/16/
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POINT OF VIEW/ Makoto Yuasa鐃緒申Reality of poverty problem needs to be known 03/16/2007
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
Until about 10 years ago, homeless people in Japan were living mainly
in cardboard shelters on streets or tents on riverbanks. Many of them
regularly went to places like Tokyo's Sanya district in Taito Ward to find
day-labor jobs offering daily wages of around 12,000 yen.
Now, there are legions of young people in their 20s and 30s who are
not living on the streets but are homeless in the broad sense of the word.
While sleeping at Internet cafes, they work as day laborers, earning 7,000
yen or so a day. Alternatively, they hop from one temporary job to another
and live in the companies' dormitories.
Many young day laborers and job-hoppers living in apartments without
savings become homeless after they lose their low-paying jobs due to illness
or other reasons. They are unable to pay the rent and soon find themselves
out on the street.
I have been involved in activities to support the homeless since 1995,
helping with more than 1,000 applications for livelihood subsidies at
welfare offices.
Over these 12 years I've seen the homeless demographic diversify in
terms of age and living styles. The family structure has changed, and people
cannot rely as easily on their families for support.
But the livelihood protection program, which is the only public means
to provide relief to these people, is not managed in a way consistent with
the basic principle of the underlying law: equal and indiscriminate
protection for the needy. As a result, the program is not working as
effectively as it should.
I met a 23-year-old man living in Tokyo in late January. The man, who
suffers from depression and a panic disorder, was dismissed by a company
where he worked as a temporary employee because of these health problems.
For a while, he managed to eke out a living working as a day laborer
but eventually was unable to pay his apartment rent. He went to a welfare
office to apply for livelihood protection, but his request was rejected on
the grounds that he should be able to work.
The man is now jobless with little more than 3,000 yen in his pocket.
His parents got divorced when he was young, and he has no relatives he can
depend on. If he spends further time seeking a job, he will be evicted from
his apartment before he finds one. But he cannot afford to be hired by the
week or by the month. With all his expenses, he cannot earn enough to make
it to each payday.
It is very rare that requests for welfare by so-called working-age
people--those aged between 15 and 64--are granted smoothly. In addition to
the fiscal restraints, the social pressure for people to be self-responsible
has grown in recent years. And it is now beginning to have repercussions at
the front line of social security.
Consequently, a sort of double standard exists in the livelihood
protection program. Applications are accepted only when the applicants or
the persons accompanying them are well informed about the welfare system.
A man in his early 30s who was working for a packing company in Chiba
Prefecture as a temporary worker got tired of staying at Internet cafes and
saunas and sent me an e-mail saying he wanted to rent out an apartment
although he had no savings. I advised him to seek livelihood protection. The
problem, however, was that welfare offices are open only during the daytime
on weekdays. He says he cannot visit a welfare office because it's likely he
will be fired if he takes a day off. The government's welfare policy pays no
attention to such needy workers.
The flawed, poorly managed welfare system did not become a serious
problem while there were other, nonpublic social safety nets that guaranteed
minimum subsistence. Impoverished people were supported by their families
and local communities, while companies provided steady a livelihood and
housing through lifetime employment and corporate housing programs.
But families and local communities have become unable to support poor
members, while companies have stopped providing such benefits for their
employees.
Now, the public livelihood protection plan is the only safety net for
the needy. Instead of trying to improve and enhance the system, however, the
government is seeking to cut welfare benefits.
In the United States, the government announces the "poverty line," the
minimum level of income needed to secure the necessities of life. The
American public knows their own living standards. Britain and Germany
publish data about the number of needy households and the ratio of these
households receiving welfare benefits.
In sharp contrast, many local governments in Japan are not at all
eager to disseminate information about the poverty threshold, or the level
of income that makes households eligible for livelihood protection.
The central government is making no effort to research the ratio of
needy households receiving welfare compared to those that do not. It's hard
not to think that both the central and local governments are trying to keep
the realities of the poor unknown to the public in order to avoid making
costly policy responses to the problem.
Some people are calling for changes in the livelihood protection
system. But the first thing the government should do is to implement the law
in a way that fulfills its objectives. Also, it needs to undertake surveys
to ascertain the number of households below the poverty line who are not
receiving any benefits from the program.
What is needed now is to make the problem of poverty clearly visible
to the public.
* * *
Makoto Yuasa is chief of the secretariat of independent life support
center Moyai, a nonprofit organization.(IHT/Asahi: March 16,2007)
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