The clientele of the jiritsu shien sentā are defined in the business summary as follows:
People who are willed to work and who can be aspected to become self-sufficient very soon.
This means that they have no illness hindering them to work and that they are in an age that allows them to respond to job offers. Furthermore they have to be people who have no obstacles to community life in the facility. Then they must be persons who can register as res-ident and are able to apply for jobs from the public job centre Haruwāku (kōkyō shokugyō anteisho haruwāku). Since November 2005 it is also possible to reenter the jiritsu shien sen-tās, but in this case it must be about six month ago that the clients left it for the last time (Nishinari 2011a:1).
Although in a notification regarding the basic policy of the Homeless Self-sufficiency Law it was pointed out that “the condition of social resources that can be used should be taken into general consideration,15” finally it was defined that the jiritsu shien sentā should be given pri-ority to people who are willed and able to work (Yamada 2009:99-100). Most times only male clients under 64 years are accepted in the jiritsu shien sentās (Morimatsu 2006:251). Excep-tions who also support women are the Jiritsu Shien Sentās Hamakaze, Nakamura, Sen-tā-Kyūshū and Ōizumi which provided two rooms for homeless couples (Yamada 2009:115).
The average client of the jiritsu shien sentā is much younger than the average homeless.
While in the survey by the government in 2007 the average age of homeless was 57.5 years (Yamada 2009:32) the average age of the clients is 47.2 years, a gap of 10.3 years. Conclud-ing from the fact that the average age of the clients of the Asesumento Sentā Maishima 1 in January 2011 was only 44.6 years, the age of the clients can be considered as falling. The youngest person that used the facility was 15 years old and the oldest was 89 years (Maishima 1 2011a). The age distribution is broader than the range reported in the survey by the govern-ment. More than half of the clients are younger than 50 years.
This tendency can be observed in other areas as well. The average age of the jiritsu shien sentā clients in Nagoya as well is lower than the normal age of homeless (Yamada 2009:150151). Iwata Keiji showed on the example of the Jiritsu Shien Sentā Nagoya that the clients un -der fifty years grew for about 30% in a time period of 6 years until 2009. This phenomenon was related to the bad economic situation around 2009 in which many young people who worked with subcontracts were fired (Iwata 2010:32-33).
15 Riyō dekiru shakai shigen no jōkyō o sōgōteki ni kanan shite.
The places where the clients of the assessment centre slept rough were in 41.1% of the cases parks. This may be explainable by the fact that in the past most times the consultation patrol built up the relations to the homeless and this was easier when the clients did not move around and live constantly on the same place in a tent. Kanesaka Keizō the former director of the Asesumento Sentā Maishima 1, pointed out, that in the last years the number of people who slept in parks before they came to the centre decreased and the number of people who did not experienced rough sleeping is increasing. Most times this people lost their flat, but had some money left and could stay at an internet cafe, a twenty four hours opened shop, a sauna or sometimes also at the place of a friend. People like this increased to over 40% (compare to figure 4).
A further characteristic of the clients observed in the Jiritsu Shien Sentā Nagoya is that they tend to have only a short record of sleeping rough. Clients of the Jiritsu Shien Sentā Nagoya who lived only three month or less without a home were 54.9%, in contrast the home-less people counted by the government who had such a short record of sleeping rough were always around 10% (Yamada 2009:151). This is considered as a chronological development.
The number of clients who slept over one year rough decreased and the number of clients who spent only one week or less on the streets nearly doubled in the period of six years until 2009 (Iwata 2010:33-34). Comparing this to the high percentage of homeless in Ōsaka who did not experience rough sleeping in a narrow cense the same pattern can be observed here as well.
Furthermore, about one of four people who enter the assessment centre has already used one time a jiritsu shien sentā (Maishima 1 2011a). But according to Kanezaka there are also people who come for the third and sometimes even for the fourth time.
A further characteristic of the clients observed in Nagoya is the high proportion of people who lived in accommodations provided by their employer. In Tōkyō 28.9% of the homeless Figure 4: Places where the clients of the Asesumento Sentā Maishima 1 slept rough
Source: Maishima 1 2011a
had lived before they became homeless in accommodations provided by the employer. In the Jiritsu Shien Sentā Nagoya 42.6% had this background (Yamada 2009:151). Unfortunately there is no comparable data for the situation in Ōsaka, but it can be considered as similar.
The health of many clients is not really good and many need medical support. 61.4% of them get medical treatment while they are in the assessment centre. But only 5.1% have to stay for a longer period at the hospital (Maishima 1 2011a). The clients are already asked by the consultation patrol about their health conditions, but they tend to say that they are healthy and are mainly judged by their appearance. The result is that few of them have physical disab-ilities, but other distresses like addictions or physical damage caused by hard work like herni-ated discs are very frequent.
Looking at the geographical distribution of the ward offices the clients contacted, which are also considered as indicators of areas of rough sleeping, a particular pattern can be ob-served. The clients are mainly from the five inner city districts, Kita, Chūō, Naniwa, Nishinari and Tennōji (compare to figure 5). The high concentration of clients coming from the ward Kita can be explained by the fact that the Japan Railways Station Ōsaka can be found in this ward and people from all over Japan arrive in this area when they come to Ōsaka. A lot of places where it is easy to sleep rough, like an underground passage and the Ōgimachi park, are close to the station as well as a labour office. In Chūō ward the Ōsaka-jō park is located, an area that can be easily used to sleep rough. The high density of homeless individuals in the wards Naniwa, Tennoji and Nishinari can be explained through their closeness to the day la-bourer area Kamagsaki, located in Nishinari ward.
This observation was made by Misuuchi Toshio as well when he analysed the distribution of homeless in Ōsaka based on the city wide survey from 1998. 78.2% of the rough sleepers, more than three fourths were found in this five wards. He points out that inside of the JR Ōsaka Loop Line the density of rough sleepers is higher than outside. Particularly in the southern part of this inner ring the density is high. Especially around the JR station Shinim-amiya and the Midosujisen Line station Dobutsuenmae, as well as in the area a short distance to the north of the subway station Ebisuchō. Whereas outside of the JR Loop Line the rough sleepers concentrate along the banks of the rivers and canals and in the public parks (Mizuu-chi 2003:37).
This pattern is basically reflected in the clients of the jiritsu shien sentās as well. Espe-cially considering that the Rehabilitation Consulting Office (kōseirōdōsho), which
recommen-ded 27.2% of the clients, is designed for day labourers and located in the ward Nishinari. In-cluding the people recommended through this institution about 74.6% of the clients come ba-sically form areas in which homelessness was observed as a frequent phenomenon before.
While the selection through the assessment centre is very low – only 21.2% of the clients do not move on to a jiritsu shien sentā (Maishima 1 2011a) – other institutions working at its forefront are very hard to evaluate. Nevertheless the outreach of the consulting patrol can be considered as restricted to what is visually confirmable, basically the people who are living in the streets and parks. The role of the welfare office is quite unclear, but the information it Figure 5: Wards in which the clients of the Asesumento Sentā Maishima 1 slept rough
Source: Maishima 1 2011a
gives on to people who go there to seek help, can be considered as very influential to their de-cision of going to a jiritsu shien sentā or not. Yamada as well points out that it is very likely that the selection is already happening at the welfare office (Yamada 2009:150-151).
Yamadas finding, “[...] although it can be said that the jiritsu shien sentās have a central role in the homeless prevention measures, they do not respond to all of them (Yamada 2009:152),16” turned out to be also valid for the jiritsu shien sentās in Ōsaka. The examination of the selection mechanisms showed, that not every homeless is sent to a jiritsu shien sentā.
The clients are younger as the average homeless and many of them have not experienced rough sleeping with its risk for the physical and mental health as well as the social disadvant-ages that may result out of it. They can be considered as the most able part of the homeless, and people who are short before becoming homeless are a large group under the clients.