Kamagazaki Supportive House

David Malinas*aboutpoverty@hotmail.com

Doctorate student in Hitotsubashi University (sociology)*Doctorate student in Aix-en-Provence Political Institute

Supportive house system in Kamagazaki

12/XI/02

1-About Kamagazaki

Kamagazaki was the biggest day labor market(in Japanese Yoseba) in post war Japan. About 30 000 day labor workers were looking for job over there untill the eighties. It was actually not only a labor market were people were coming to find job. It was also a ghetto where many day labor workers were living, sleeping in very cheap hotels called doya. In a time of labor force shortage, Japan situation from 1956 to 1991, it was important to sedentary and concentrate this labor force in a specific place like Kamagazaki in Osaka or Sanya in Tokyo.

With the global change of Japanese system in the nineties, day labor workers that were working especially in construction industry went out of job. They also were getting to old to be employed in this kind of physical job and entered in concurrence with young Japanese that were no more so reluctant to do this kind of well paid “3K”(1) job.

So people living in Kamagazaki, out of job, could not afford any more to sleep in doyas. even if the price of these cheap hotels drops by half from 3000 yens to an average of 1500yens. Ancient day labor workers became homeless. They quickly focused the attention of Japanese people and authorities that were talking of a new urban problem. Some doya’s owners and other associations embedding homeless people problem in a more general plan of rebirth of Kamagazaki came out with a new plan.

2-Supportive house system

Homeless people in Japan are old. A part of them is more than 65 years old and can receive a minimum income for life (seikatsuhogo). However, the situation is quickly complicated by the fact that they do not have any address. Without address, that is in Japan the equivalent of identity card, impossible to enter any administrative procedure: from bank account opening to vote in elections. Associations and some doya’s owners began to think about a way to put them out of the street and give them back a chance to live on “tatamis”. The supportive house system, first called welfare manshion was born.

How does it work ? First, doya’s owner had to change their doya to feet the need of an elderly population : elevator, toilet accessibility, adequate personnel. It was a legal obligation that did also exist in Tokyo but a change occurred, letting people with minimum income for life entering non renovated doyas.

These renovated doya’s would become the address of homeless people aged more than 65 years old or that have disabilities (as they were working in physical job it is not rare). Helped in their administrative procedures by volunteers they can open a bank account and obtain their minimum income for life. In reality it is more complicated, but basically it works like that.

3-Results

Even if administration was pretty reticent to such a system, it gives very good result. Today, there are seven ancient doyas that have been renovated that have a capacity exceeding 800 people(2). That is approximately 800 homeless out of the street, back to a better life with the statut of resident.

Moreover, on a quality level, there is a real community that did developed. There is a trust relation between doya owners and their new “clients” as the room is given before any payment can be made. Every morning of the week, there is a “morning kiss”, breakfast organized in one or another supportive houses where people can meet and talk together. Owners also organized some events: visit to the zoo, karaoke contest etc.... Moreover, even if one “supportive house” is about one hundred rooms, owner knows the name of each inhabitant.

Supportive house system is a very rare example of success concerning reinsertion of homeless people and more generally the renewal of a town that was once a ghetto of day labor workers.

(1)   3K : Kitanai, Kitsui, Kiken means durty, hard, dangerous.

(2)   Supportive house in numbers

About poverty-homeless in Japan
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Last updated: December 01, 2002.