366.1
Impact of Social Change and Restructuring of Urban Underclass Areas on Homeless People: The Case of Yokohama, Japan
The labor demand for day-laborers decreased since the early 1990s. As a result, the number of homeless in major Japanese cities increased. After the establishment of a new law to help homeless people become financially independent in 2002, many people who were homeless or considered unable to work because of age or disability received welfare and took up residence in urban underclass areas.
Kotobuki, Yokohama’s urban underclass area, currently houses the highest rate of welfare recipients—approximately 80%—of underclass areas in Japan. The number of welfare recipients in the area has especially increased this decade. As a result, the area has become the center of the socially vulnerable.
In light of this social change, the local government, the social welfare council, and nursing care business offices developed a community welfare system in 2011. This system mostly focuses on officially recognized residents, not on those who are homeless. In 2006, Yokohama City reduced its special temporary welfare support for homeless people, and then cut it entirely in 2012. This caused greater difficulties for the homeless in the neighborhood, creating a highly concentrated district of welfare recipients.
So far, urban underclass areas are important for the homeless with regard to providing access to social resources—for example through forging relations with supportive groups and getting free meals. As urban underclass areas have gradually changed into places of concentrated welfare recipients, those who do not receive welfare support and are homeless now face even greater pressure.