Tokyo

The Scale of Homelessness in Tokyo

Since the early 1990s, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG) has periodically conducted extensive counts of persons living on the streets and in shelters. Although it is likely that these figures significantly underestimate the actual homeless population, given the difficulty of counting each member of this mobile and often hard-to-find population, the TMG's statistics show a consistent growth in the street and shelter populations throughout the 1990s. For example, approximately 461 homeless persons were counted in 1993; 3,300 in 1995; 4,300 in 1998; and 5,798 in 1999. Tokyo is Japan's most populous urban area (12,064,101 residents in 2000), but the second largest one, Osaka (8,805,081 in 2000), actually encompasses the country's largest homeless population, estimated at about 8,660 persons in 2000. Osaka has a much larger construction industry and day laborer population than Tokyo, while the latter has a larger and more vibrant service sector that has been less prone [Page 562]to high unemployment amid the recession and subsequent restructuring.

Characteristics of Tokyo's Homeless Population

In 2000, the TMG commissioned local researchers and activists to conduct a survey of approximately 1,000 homeless persons living in Tokyo. Respondents were overwhelmingly male (98.5 percent) and middle-aged, with an average age of 55 and about 85 percent between the ages of 40 and 65. About 40 percent were born in Tokyo, and another 40 percent migrated there from rural parts of Japan by their twenties, living most of their working years in Tokyo. About 60 percent of respondents had only completed junior high school—which, however, is not necessarily considered a low level. Compulsory education in Japan ends with junior high school, and secure and decent paying jobs for junior high graduates were plentiful during the period of economic expansion. Although the vast majority of homeless persons in Tokyo are currently middle-aged and older male blue-collar workers, groups such as younger persons, women, and service workers are appearing on the streets in increasing numbers.

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