Tokyo metropolitan government tells NPO to stop feeding homeless
The Tokyo metropolitan government has ordered the nonprofit Catholic charity organization Sanyukai to stop giving free meals to homeless people along the Sumida river. Government officials claim they had received many complaints about the program:
Metro officials said most of the complaints were filed since last spring by parents of students attending local schools who fear the kids will come in contact with those waiting for free meals.
In addition, the activity infringes on Article 24 of the river law, which forbids occupancy of public riverbeds without proper authorization, according to the metro officials.
“We’ve been conducting handouts at the riverbed for over a decade. I don’t understand why we are receiving these complaints now,” Sanyukai Director Jean Le Beau said.
The group has been told to end the weekly meals, which attract 300 to 500 homeless people near Komagata Bridge, by March.
- Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
- dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)
- Kirainet.com – A geek in Japan (Subscribe)
| Related Posts: |
|
Tokyo Metropolitan Government subsidizes NPO projects to help foreign residents 15,759 homeless people in Japan |
Full RSS Feed
“complaints were filed since last spring by parents of students attending local schools who fear the kids will come in contact with those waiting for free meals”
This is so disheartening. Ignorance at its best.
Lol what? They should die to hunger then?
this is the same type of argument that happens in any area. here, we call it NIMBY – Not In My BackYard. “We should feed the homeless, but NIMBY.”
If the parents are so worried, they should set up volunteer guardwatch duty. They’ll soon find out that they’ve been worrying for nothing…
It seems they have been offered shelter by the local governments, but some of them do not want to buy the program and want to stay there.
With all due respect the welfare programme in Japan is not working. Japan has the largest number of homeless people of the G8 countries with the possible excepion of US. Compared with most western European countries there are much more homeless in Japan. Japan is among the wealthiest countries in the world, surely the government can do better.
Any stats on that?
quick google
Japan
That sounds more like it.
Two charities, a religious organization, a magazine, and a government.
I notice that the url for Japanese homeless figures is a government website, whereas the urls for other countries are charitable / religious organizations.
Are there any Japanese charity figures available for homeless people? – alternatively, are there government figures for US / UK / FR / DE?
The point I am making is that a government (any government) is more likely to under report homeless numbers in order to make their administration look good. Conversely, a charity is more likely to over estimate homeless numbers in order to highlight the problem and raise more cash in charitable donations. A magazine? Well they just dramatize the situation in order to sell more copies!
correction:
and a magazine.
Let’s ask it to Anti-Terror Performance.
He’s supposed to know it.
correction
平成15年（2003) 25,296
They probably just need to change the feeding time to a later time in the evening. Here in the UK, open-air soup kitchens roll out around 8-9pm.
Are you sure about the numbers? I hear many are not registered in Japan as homeless. You walk through Asakusa, and one of the rivers in eastern Tokyo and there are homeless everywhere. Take a stroll in Asakusa in the evening and they are all lined up in the shoutengais with roofs. i have not seen that many homeless in western europe. Is threre some kind of right that everyone has in japan that if you can´t pay for rent the welfare has to give you a place to live. if you don´t have enough to eat you have a right to get money from the government or is it private institutions who takes care of these matters? in many european countries you have a right to have food and a place to live so that you do not get homeless.
That’s sumida river that we are talking about here, where homeless people gather.
Let’s check the law, chech the practice, check the facts before you judge the system of any counrty.
The number of homeless is much higher than the government figures. Go to Shinjuku, or any large city within Tokyo and the surrounding areas and you will see lots of homeless. Not only Sumida River but all rivers have lots of homeless. Why is it that the government is not telling the truth? Why are so many people falling between cracks in Japan? As this article clearly shows the government have no intentions to deal with the problem instead homeless in Japan are still seen as a nuisance in Japan instead of when they should be thinking that it is a huamn right for every person to have a house. You need a fixed address to qualify to apply for welfare help. So, if you want financial help to find fixed accommodation you need a permanent address.Therefore homeless in Japan do not get help from the government. Japan also have no poverty line. I have lived long enough in Japan and seen that something is not as it should be and the government is not telling the entire truth.
If you want to help Japanese homeless people, fine. That’s a great idea.
If you want to say the government is not telling the whole truth, sure, no governments in the world are telling the whole truth, for that matter,no media tell you the whole truth, and activists often tell lies for their agenda.
If you want to say that the government is not doing anything for homeless to get them the job, or welfare benefit, that is mistaken. Read the link above I listed. ホームレスの自立支援に関する・・・
If you want to say the government is not doing sufficient enough. I agree, and no government is doing enough.
If you are shocked Japan is doing better on the stats, well, I don’t know what to say.
So what kind of figures do homeless support groups themselves give?
Japan times article
As for how the local government provides those who don’t have permanent address with the welfare benefit, see page 11
http://www.homeless-net.org/siryousitu/sankousiryou/sankou1/jichitai19.pdf
As for how NPO evaluate the government activity, see
ホームレス支援全国ネットワーク
http://www.homeless-net.org/
特定非営利活動法人 新宿ホームレス支援機構
http://homepage3.nifty.com/shelter-less/index.html
How does this charity help the homeless? Once a week, they get a free meal, and? In Brussels central station, on the Christmas eve, people did the same thing, the volunteers felt good, but that’s it. The charity has been going on for awhile, occasionally. There are about 1000 career homeless in Brussels capital region (out of the population of 1 million), and the number is not decreasing and the social housing has a looong waiting list, i.e. the situation has not improved. This kind of charity is all image and no substance when the focus should be on the reintegration of the homeless.
Well, in Sydney for example, all the soup kitchens have arranged a different day of the week to serve a meal. So they only serve once a week, but you can go to a different place every night for a meal. There are other groups who help with various things, like getting homeless people post boxes so that they have an address and can get welfare. Some groups run shelters, some have medical care, it’s better than nothing, but the government should really be doing this, not fifty charity groups.