The Japanese welfare state has been described frequently as “residual” in comparative studies, although its basis was already formulated in the 1950s and 1960s, as the demand for welfare and the supply capacities increased after the Second World War. But this development was stopped by the oil crisis which led Japan into a serious stagnation. The Japanese authorit-ies were convinced that the welfare state was an obstacle to the competitiveness of the eco-nomy (Kono 2005:118-120).
The Japanese welfare state is characterised by active informal welfare practices, economic performance substituting for state welfare, a status-segregated social insurance system, occu-pational welfare for “core”-workers and low spending on personal social services (Kono 2005:118). Welfare policy is designed to support self-help, mutual aid, market welfare activit-ies and enterprise welfare. For instance, based on the assumption that a majority of older people live with their children who take care for them, community care policy defines domi-ciliary services as those supporting family care rather than caring for older people directly (Kono 2005:120-121).
This strong concentration on the family as a safety net promoted by the government is seen as a unique feature of the Japanese welfare system. The family is an institutionalized unit of support, based on a male breadwinner model. For instance in large companies benefits provide health insurance, pensions, and family allowances to workers, their spouses, and chil-dren. The role of the wives, who are discouraged from engaging in full-time work, is to provide care for the elderly and children. Furthermore low-income families and families whose breadwinner lost their income due to illness, injury, or unemployment also qualify for temporary support in form of public assistance and subsidized public housing units. The pub-lic social welfare emphasises mainly on families and those with special needs. Also due to re-visions the pressure to rely on families has eased, the ability to find work, especially in the case of single men, remains a constant issue (Ezawa 2002:287).
The enterprise welfare, “core”-workers are able to receive, is used as a management tool.
Those workers who devote themselves to work are rewarded through enterprise welfare. It is not seen as a right of workers but is used to increase their productivity. Therefore the levels of services are very different and strongly linked to the size of companies and worker's
employ-ment status (full-time or part-time) (Kono 2005:122). Informal welfare practices and enter-prise welfare services were underpinned by traditional values, and have been employed by the Japanese welfare politics (Kono 2005:137). People who are not capable of self-support and have no family members who can take care of them are eligible for social welfare payments.
The basis for this forms the Japanese constitution (kenpō) which guarantees a “minimum standard of civilized living for every citizen.” But in fact most local authorities refuse welfare applications of homeless for two principal reasons: (a) a fixed address is missing; (b) the ap-plicant fail to demonstrate that he is to old or ill to work. This two conditions were developed by the bureaucrats and are not backed by the law. Additionally there is a hard to guess number of people who refuse to apply for welfare because of pride, ignorance, fear of the bureaucracy or other reasons (Gill 2001a:17).
The legal basis for the homeless support is today basically formed by three laws, the Law for the Handling of Sick and Dead Travellers (kōryo byōnin oyobi kōryo shibōnin toriatsukai-hō), the Livelihood Protection Law, and the Special Law on Temporary Measures to Support the Self-sufficiency of Homeless (hōmuresu no jiritsu no shien nado ni kan suru tokubetsu sochi-hō) (Kuwahara 2007:148). While the first two laws are discussed in this chapter, the Homeless Self-sufficiency Law will be object to the next chapter because of its importance for the jiritus shien sentā.
In the strict sense the Law for the Handling of Sick and Dead Travellers does not deal with the homelessness as a social problem. By this law all those people who die in the streets and have no one who takes care of them are covered financially. All people who die in this way have to be examined by a physician to reveal the reason for the death and to identify the per-son. The results are recorded in writings like the body identity record (shitai mimoto chōsho) and the autopsy record (kenshi chōsho). Most times the examinations are conducted by the physician and the police at the place where the body was found, but in the prefecture of Ōsaka the body is brought to the Medical Inspection Office (Ōsaka-fu Kansatsu I-jimusho) where they are examined. The law is also applied on people who break down and become ill on the road, and covers their transportation to a medical facility. But getting in the case of emergency medical treatment is not covered by this law (Kuwahara 2007:153). Because of its low relev-ance for the homeless support this law will not be a topic further and is here just raised for completeness.
The support through the Livelihood Protection Law is often not easily accessible for
homeless individuals. The lack of a proper home which can be used as a principle space for living makes it impossible to register oneself as a resident. Without registration as a resident, one's identity cannot be confirmed, which makes receiving any kind of support problematic and adds also a series of other disadvantages (Kuwahara 2007:148). According to the civil code, an address is the base of everyone's livelihood. It is necessary that the address is a resid-ence associated with continuation and expectations. People who do not have an address suffer from following disadvantages through legal restrictions:
• They cannot become assured of national health insurance,
• they cannot become assured of national pension,
• they cannot make contracts with financial institutions,
• they cannot acquire driver licenses,
• they cannot acquire the right to vote,
• they cannot acquire a passport,
• they cannot purchase a cell phone (Kuwahara 2007:148-149);
To solve the problem of absent health insurance, an insurance system for unemployed day labourers (hiyatoi shitsugyō hoken seido) who were excluded from the social welfare system because of their irregular employment situation started in 1965. But registration at a residence was necessary to acquire the insurance card. Therefore the usage was complicated for the homeless day labourers. Nowadays they still need to be registered to receive special public services for day labourers (Kuwahara 2007:149).
In the case of an emergency, the preconditions for accessing medical treatment and other support through welfare are hindrances for the homeless. In article 7 of the Livelihood Protec-tion Law it is determined that only the person who wants to receive livelihood protecProtec-tion or another relative living together can apply for it. This means that a homeless person that is un-able to apply for livelihood protection itself, perhaps because he has lost consciousness, is freezing to death, or is in another serious situation, wouldn't be able to receive medical sup-port (Kuwahara 2007:152).
Since the middle of the 1990s, decisions regarding the institution administrating the wel-fare benefits for homeless were reexamined through proposals of the governors, and in more of 50% of the cases the result were concessions of some kind. This kind of pleading is
immin-ent to the Livelihood Protection Law, because the governor has the right to reexamine a de-cision before it goes to the court. There have been 88 cases of this kind in 1999 and 99 cases in 2005 in the prefecture of Ōsaka alone. But through juridical organs, homeless raised claims against the decisions of the authorities (Kuwahara 2007:142-143).
In most cases the subordinate courts tend to protect the rights of homeless. But in the su-perior courts this tendency seems to be reversed. The supreme court tends to reject all appeals concerning the homeless regardless of the topic (Kuwahara 2007:148). The court decisions became a kind of outline for the conditions under which welfare benefits were granted (com-pare to Kuwahara 142-148).