Miki Hasegawa-'We Are Not Garbage!'_ the Homeless Movement in Tokyo, 1994-2002 (East Asia_ History, Politics, Sociology, Culture) (2006)

EAST ASIAHISTORY, POLITICS, SOCIOLOGY, CULTURE

Edited by

Edward BeauchampUniversity of Hawai‘i

A ROUTLEDGE SERIES

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PITFALL OR PANACEA

The Irony of US Power in OccupiedJapan, 1945–1952Yoneyuki Sugita

THE RENAISSANCE OF TAKEFU

How People and the Local PastChanged the Civic Life of a RegionalJapanese TownGuven Peter Witteveen

MANAGING TRANSITIONS

The Chinese Communist Party, UnitedFront Work, Corporatism, andHegemonyGerry Groot

THE PROSPECTS FOR A REGIONAL HUMAN

RIGHTS MECHANISM IN EAST ASIA

Hidetoshi Hashimoto

AMERICAN WOMEN MISSIONARIES AT

KOBE COLLEGE, 1873–1909New Dimensions in GenderNoriko Kawamura Ishii

A PATH TOWARD GENDER EQUALITY

State Feminism in JapanYoshie Kobayashi

POSTSOCIALIST CINEMA IN POST-MAO

CHINA

The Cultural Revolution after theCultural RevolutionChris Berry

BUILDING CULTURAL NATIONALISM IN

MALAYSIA

Identity, Representation, andCitizenshipTimothy P. Daniels

LIBERAL RIGHTS AND POLITICAL CULTURE

Envisioning Democracy in ChinaZhenghuan Zhou

THE ORIGINS OF LEFT-WING CINEMA IN

CHINA, 1932–37Vivian Shen

MAKING A MARKET ECONOMY

The Institutional Transformation of a Freshwater Fishery in a ChineseCommunityNing Wang

GLOBAL MEDIA

The Television Revolution in AsiaJames D. White

ACCOMMODATING THE CHINESE

The American Hospital in China,1880–1920Michelle Renshaw

INDONESIAN EDUCATION

Teachers, Schools, and CentralBureaucracyChristopher Bjork

BUDDHISM, WAR, AND NATIONALISM

Chinese Monks in the Struggle againstJapanese Aggressions, 1931–1945Xue Yu

COOPERATION OVER CONFLICT

The Women’s Movement and the Statein Postwar JapanMiriam Murase

“WE ARE NOT GARBAGE!”The Homeless Movement in Tokyo,1994–2002Miki Hasegawa

EAST ASIAHISTORY, POLITICS, SOCIOLOGY, CULTURE

EDWARD BEAUCHAMP, General Editor

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“WE ARE NOT GARBAGE!”The Homeless Movement in Tokyo, 1994–2002

Miki Hasegawa

RoutledgeNew York & London

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Published in 2006 byRoutledge Taylor & Francis Group 270 Madison AvenueNew York, NY 10016

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Hasegawa, Miki."We are not garbage!" : the homeless movement in Tokyo, 1994-2002 / Miki Hasegawa.

p. cm. -- (East Asia)Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN 0-415-97693-61. Homelessness--Japan--Tokyo--History. 2. Homeless persons--Civil

rights--Japan--Tokyo--History. 3. Homeless persons--Japan--Tokyo--Political activity--History. 4. Shinjuku Coalition--History. I. Title. II. East Asia (New York, N.Y.)

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v

Contents

List of Acronyms vii

List of Maps ix

Acknowledgments xi

Chapter OneIntroduction 1

Chapter TwoHomelessness in Postwar Japan 23

Chapter ThreeTheoretical Framework and Hypotheses 53

Chapter FourThe Initial Period of the Movement(February 1994–January 1996) 69

Chapter FiveThe Transitional Period of the Movement(January 1996–October 1997) 97

Chapter SixThe Final Period of the Movement (October 1997–mid-2002)with Summary and Conclusions 117

Appendix ADefining and Counting the Homeless (in the U.S. and Japan) 147

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Appendix BList of Surveys Used in the Study 149

Appendix CInterviews 157

Appendix DChronology of Homeless Policy (in Tokyo and Japan) 159

Notes 165

Bibliography 181

Index 205

vi Contents

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List of Acronyms

DPJ Democratic Party of Japan

GHQ General Headquarters of the Allied Occupation

JR Japan Railways

LDP Liberal Democratic Party

ME micro electronics

NPO Non-profit organization

QC quality control

RM resource mobilization

SMO social movement organization

SWG Shinjuku Ward Government

TMG Tokyo Metropolitan Government

vii

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List of Maps

Figure 1. Map of Central Tokyo 2

Figure 2. Map of Japan 8

Figure 3. Map of Shinjuku 72

ix

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Acknowledgments

This book is an outgrowth of the dissertation that I wrote at ColumbiaUniversity. Numerous people helped me with the thesis and research onwhich it was based. I first thank my dissertation committee members. MaryRuggie, sponsor, closely checked drafts of the thesis, and Francesca Pol-letta, chair, guided me on concepts and interpretation of research findings.Charles Tilly, whom I contacted for membership in the committee onlyafter I knew what I was writing, helped me with literature. I also appreciatehis advice on how to become a professional researcher.

Bruce Link and Brendan O’Flaherty offered technical and substantivesuggestions that made the dissertation fuller than otherwise possible. In thisbook, I tried to incorporate their advice in ways that I was unable to whenI wrote the thesis, although I am solely responsible for the contents.

In Japan, between 1998 and 2000, the Institute of Social Science atthe University of Tokyo allowed me to use its facilities as a visitingresearcher. Access to one of the best university library systems in the coun-try facilitated my research. From 1998 to 2001, the Institute also hired meas a research assistant—an appointment that financially supported myfieldwork. I thank Masako Watanabe at the International Research Centerfor Japanese Studies for connecting me to the Institute. I also thank TsuneoAyabe, a professor emeritus at the University of Tsukuba, for connectingme to Shôgo Koyano, a former president of the Japan Sociological Society.Koyano introduced key yoseba researchers to me; eventually, MitsutoshiNakane, Tom Gill, Keiko Yamaguchi, Yukihiko Kitagawa, and othersoffered me important writings on yoseba and homelessness, including theirown.

In the field, the non-homeless activist who appears as Harada in thisbook took time to explain movement events as they took place. Like manyhomeless persons who knew him, I appreciated his straightforward character

xi

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as well as sense of humor, in addition to the substantive help in the field. Ialso thank Nanae Ôgai, an enthusiastic volunteer in West Shinjuku, forinforming me of developments in the locale when I had to temporarilyexcuse myself from the field for work or illness.

Outside the field, Tarô and Keiko Hasegawa, my parents, saved forme every newspaper article and TV program on homelessness that theycould find. Jun’ichi, my brother, gave me an opportunity to lecture onhomelessness in Japan at Obirin University where he teaches. It made mefeel that I did something for the homeless, not only for the students. Rie,my sister, took me out for a change when I needed it, although we tended toend up in places related to research, such as the Waterfront Sub-center atTokyo Bay. Further, Norma Fuentes, Xiaodan Zhang, and other fellow stu-dents at Columbia University, as well as Kayo Nakagawa, a long-termfriend of mine who now teaches at Kochi University, assured me of thecompletion of the project when I felt unsure.

Following research, James Wright at the University of Central Floridaand anonymous reviewers gave me an opportunity to refine a portion of mydissertation for the journal American Behavioral Scientist. Chapter 2 of thebook adopts parts of my article (Hasegawa 2005) that appeared in thejournal’s special issue on “Homelessness and the Politics of Social Exclu-sion.” I thank Sage Publications for permitting me to do so.

The book became possible only because Benjamin Holtzman, editorat Routledge, found my dissertation interesting and helped me prepare thebook and because Edward Beauchamp taught me how to improve the dis-sertation for publication. I also benefited from comments on my researchfindings by members of the Japan Research Group at the Society for theAdvancement of Socio-Economics (SASE). I thank Greg Jackson, a friendof mine from Columbia University, and Yoshitaka Okada at Sophia Univer-sity, Tokyo, for letting me join the group. Further, a research team on glob-alization and lower-stratum people in Japan, sponsored by the Ministry ofEducation, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, helped me keep upwith new developments in policy, movements, and research surroundingthe issue of homelessness. I thank Akihiko Nishizawa at Toyo Universityfor allowing me into the team as a cooperator. Finally, Makoto Sugimura, agraduate student at Tokiwa University, helped me with the maps thatappear in this book.

I dedicate this book to the homeless persons who participated in myfieldwork (as well as others who would have participated if circumstanceshad allowed). Before the fieldwork, I had never participated in a movement.In one sense, we exchanged our projects. As I followed them around andjoined their activities, they introduced me to their friends for an interview,

xii Acknowledgments

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showed me around a homeless facility in which they were temporarilyhoused, and invited me to numerous informal gatherings among them. Spe-cial thanks go to Itchan, Mr. Andô, Matchan, Saitô, Ms. Asano, Ms. Horie,Ms. Kaneko, Mr. Kunogi, Mr. Sagawa, Mr. Sasaki, Mr. Sakamoto, Mr.Matsushita, Mr. Fukuda, Mr. Gotô, Kuma-san, Mr. Takahashi, and Mr.Fujimori. I wish that Japanese society allowed us to use our full (and real)names regardless of our past and current socio-economic status.

Acknowledgments xiii

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Chapter One

Introduction

In February 1994, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG) evicted some150–200 homeless people in an encampment on the west side of Japan Rail-ways (JR) Shinjuku station. The station is located in Shinjuku Ward, a sub-center of Japan’s capital Tokyo.1 The ward has a daytime population of about800,000, and the station is used by nearly 1.5 million commuters a day. Soonafter the eviction, a couple of non-homeless activists’ groups came to the site,one from San’ya and the other from Shibuya, and restored the encampmentwith the remaining homeless persons. From the encampment, homeless per-sons and non-homeless activists began to demand welfare and employment,targeting the Tokyo and Shinjuku governments. Several months after the evic-tion, some of the activists and homeless settlers in the encampment officiallyformed a movement group, which I will call the Shinjuku Coalition in thisbook,2 to launch a full-scale struggle to win “public guarantee of employmentand livelihood” for all the homeless in Shinjuku.

The Coalition continued to struggle for about eight years. During theperiod, the group targeted not only the ward and metropolitan governmentsbut also the central government. Throughout the struggle, the overriding goalremained public provision of employment and welfare for all homeless people.Without achieving this goal at any level of government, however, the Coalitionfell apart and, in the summer of 2002, proclaimed that the homeless shouldtake responsibility for their own future instead of counting on the Coalition orgovernment. As of this writing, the group retains its name and, as it has donesince 1994, meets regularly in West Shinjuku to give out food and flyers tohomeless people. Yet, the main purpose of this activity is no longer to mobilizethe aggrieved for contentious action but to inform them of services that publicagencies offer. Much less often, the group also meets with public officials in aneffort to influence ongoing homeless measures, but mass participants usuallywait outside the building until a small delegate comes back with few fruits.

1

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* * *

In Tokyo, as in many other large cities in Japan, homelessness began toincrease sharply in the early 1990s. Since then, several movement groupshave formed to address homelessness in the city. The Shinjuku Coalition wasthe first among them, and the other groups were created to follow the leadof the Coalition. The Coalition was also the only movement group that suc-ceeded in citywide mobilization of the homeless. It did so by leading other,newer groups as well as another movement group that had long worked on

2 “We Are Not Garbage!”

Figure 1. Map of Central Tokyo.


day labor. While these groups had their own local homeless constituen-cies, their mass mobilization was very limited in scale and frequency com-pared to that of the Coalition. The homeless movement in Tokyo, or thesubject of this book, emerged and developed along the activities of theShinjuku Coalition.

Yet, from the beginning to the quiescence of the movement,3 theCoalition faced a series of difficulties. Although it set out to gain publicguarantee of employment and provision of full welfare, it found itselfspending tremendous amounts of time and energy in realizing mass negoti-ations with public officials because they refused to sit down with the home-less to talk about policy. In particular, before regular talks became possiblewith TMG officials, the group had to busy itself with an anti-eviction cam-paign as the TMG threatened to dismantle the encampment in West Shin-juku. Thus, despite their centrality in the group’s raison d’etre, theCoalition was able to focus on policy matters only after mass negotiationsand survival of the encampment were assured.

Moreover, although the Coalition, upon focusing on policy issues, suc-cessfully scaled up the movement to the city level by forging an alliance withthe other movement groups in Tokyo, the alliance did not perform well. Allthe groups agreed that public guarantee of employment and full welfare wasan important goal and, as a step toward that goal, jointly sought severalhomeless shelters that the TMG had planned but suspended because of oppo-sition by ward governments. However, as the shelter campaign dragged onwithout success, the other groups became much less interested in these facili-ties. After all, it took as long as three years for the alliance to see the firstthree shelters in operation. Although the Coalition wanted to eventuallyintroduce a public employment program into these shelters, the alliance col-lapsed even before it discussed the feasibility of this idea.

When the Coalition scaled up the movement, it also lost internal soli-darity. Initially, the relations between non-homeless activists and homelesspersons were more or less equal, although the activists officially took lead-ership of the group. In a communal setting, the two parties jointly decidedwhat to do next and how, and engaged in unruly collective action to maketheir voice heard. As a result, the group made a number of gains, althoughthey were far short of the overriding goal. These relations changed, how-ever, as the leadership began to subordinate homeless persons and shiftedfrom community-based mobilization to mobilization of diffuse homelessindividuals. The leadership sometimes expelled from the group homelesspersons who did not conform to its policy. The group no longer used dis-ruptive tactics and, although it continued to make small gains, overall, theyturned out to be fewer and less universal in nature.

Introduction 3


After the opening of the three shelters became certain, in mid-2000,the Coalition further tried to scale up the movement to the national level asthe central government had become interested in devising a national home-less policy. Yet, the leadership was unable to agree on for what to conductnational mobilization of the homeless. It split into two camps, with oneseeking a workable policy from administrators and the other, passage of acontroversial homeless assistance bill that seemed to endorse eviction. Theformer succeeded in mobilizing a number of movement groups and theirhomeless constituencies from across the country under the slogan “employ-ment and livelihood without eviction.” It was the first nationwide mobi-lization of the homeless in Japanese history. After all, however, neithercamp affected the central government in any significant way. The billpassed in mid-2002, and shortly after, the group officially became a “pres-sure group,” thereby phasing out the movement in Tokyo.

* * *

The objective of this study is to explain the emergence, trajectory, andgains of the movement in Tokyo. In particular, it concerns the followingquestions. First, how was organization of the homeless possible? Homelessindividuals are generally believed to be “unorganizable” (Rocha 1994) fora variety of reasons, including their alleged tendency to suffer apathy andlack of self-confidence and their high mobility resulting from the constantneed to find food, employment, and safe space (Snow and Anderson 1993).Even when homeless persons create an encampment to lead a more settledlife, it does not necessarily facilitate organization of the homeless. Althoughthere were in the early 1990s at least several other homeless encampmentsin central Tokyo, the movement began in West Shinjuku and not in otherplaces. Why did the movement emerge in West Shinjuku? How did non-homeless activists (and homeless persons) there succeed in organizing thehomeless?

Second, why did the Shinjuku Coalition evolve in the way it did?Despite the initial success in organizing the homeless, non-homelessactivists could not sustain solidaristic relations with the aggrieved. As themovement became routinized, the non-homeless leadership created a dualinternal structure by lowering the position of homeless participants. Therelations between the leadership and the constituency became unequal,with the former often exerting power over the latter. Relatedly, the leader-ship could not maintain communal mobilization, either. This mode ofmobilization was far more powerful than mobilization of homeless individ-uals because, in a communal setting, homeless persons, with established ties



and networks, could respond readily to action requirements in order toprotect and advance their common interests. However, the leadership aban-doned communal mobilization and resorted to mobilization of diffusehomeless individuals, settled or mobile. Why did the leadership-con-stituency relations become unequal? Why did the group shift its mode ofmobilization?

Third and finally, what accounts for movement gains? Although theShinjuku Coalition failed to win public guarantee of employment and liveli-hood for the aggrieved, between 1994 and 2002, it brought a number ofbenefits to the homeless in Shinjuku and beyond by mobilizing up to hun-dreds of homeless people at one time. For example, while the Coalitioncould not guarantee public welfare for all the needy homeless in Shinjuku,it at least made it easier for them to obtain it. Also, by mobilizing othermovement groups to stage a sit-in protest against an eviction that the TMGplanned, the group succeeded in drawing public attention to homelessnesswhen it was not yet fully recognized as a social problem, as the protest wastelevised live and reported in Japan’s major newspapers. Over time, how-ever, the number of gains declined and their substance changed from uni-versal to selective. What gains did the Coalition achieve and how? Why didthe gains change in the way they did?

The present study draws on the relational perspective of social move-ments (McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly 2001) to answer these questions. Therelational perspective is useful for present purposes because, in contrast tothe resource mobilization (RM) and political process perspectives that pre-ceded it, it treats movements as dynamic, creative interactions amongactors, including the state. The emphasis on the interactive, creative natureof movements facilitates analysis of how non-homeless activists organizedthe homeless in West Shinjuku and how the movement in Tokyo emerged asthe two parties interacted with opponents. The treatment of the state as amovement participant is crucial in explaining the evolution of the ShinjukuCoalition, since, as I will argue in this study, state agencies, particularly atthe metropolitan level, played a decisive role in undermining solidaritybetween the non-homeless leadership and homeless people. By alteringtheir relations, the TMG also profoundly affected the Coalition’s goals, tac-tical choices and, consequently, achievements.

* * *

By tracing the history of the movement in Tokyo, I seek to draw atten-tion to recent lower-stratum movements in which challengers have beencomprised not only by the aggrieved but also by external collaborators who

Introduction 5


are outside the political establishment. Social movement researchers havetended to assume that movements are either exogenous or endogenous totheir constituencies. A number of studies on movements among lower-stra-tum people in the past couple of decades (Cress 1993; Cress and Snow1996; Delgado 1986; Demirel 1999; Hirsch 1993; Rocha 1994; Wagnerand Cohen 1991; T. Wright 1995, 1997) indicate, however, that externalcollaborators that operate outside the polity, such as activists’ and advo-cacy groups, have been deeply involved in these movements. Along withmass participants, they have played a significant role in the emergence anddevelopment of the movements. This raises the question of whether con-ventional arguments on the rise and fall of movements apply to these mixedmovements.

The same can be said of the effectiveness of indigenous and proxymovements. Some researchers have argued that, in affluent societies, for-mal, increasingly professional movement organizations are more efficient inbringing benefits to the poor and powerless than mass-based movements.Others have maintained that, given the right opportunities and indigenousresources, the poor and powerless can mount successful movements ontheir own. While both proxy and indigenous movements can generate fruit-ful results, studies on lower-stratum mobilization in recent years suggestthat mixed movements can also generate substantial gains at least on thelocal level. The proxy-indigenous dichotomy misses these less visible gainsand leaves unanswered the question of how the aggrieved and their collab-orators produce gains. By detailing how homeless people and their exter-nally originated collaborators formed a movement, developed it, andgenerated gains along the way, the present study aims to deepen our under-standing of how mixed movements work.

THE SHINJUKU COALITION: ITS BACKGROUND ANDCHARACTERISTICS

Growth and spread of homelessness

Homelessness in Japan4 first became noticeable in and around yoseba dur-ing the 1980s. Yoseba denotes an informal day labor market (Nakane2002). Since the latter half of the 1970s, it has operated largely for the con-struction industry (ibid.). Yoseba exist, or open up, in cities across thecountry, but the largest and most institutionalized are Kamagasaki inOsaka City (Osaka Prefecture), San’ya (covering parts of Arakawa andTaito Wards) in Tokyo, Kotobuki in Yokohama City (Kanagawa Prefec-ture), and Sasajima (which is also called Sasashima) in Nagoya City (Aichi



Prefecture). The first three are embedded in flophouse quarters and areoften compared to skid row in the United States (Ezawa 2002; Gill 2001).For the yoseba day laborer, temporary homelessness was part of life sinceevery lean season meant possible or actual loss of any form of housing.During the 1980s, especially in the latter half of the decade, however, long-term homelessness began to increase among older yoseba men (K. Shima1999; Umezawa 1995).

Homelessness then started to rise sharply beyond yoseba in largecities across the country, around 1992 when a recession hit the economy(Iwata 1997a; K. Shima 1999; Tamaki 1997). In central Tokyo, the TMGcounted on one day about 460 homeless in certain public places in 1992,but the number grew to more than 1,000 by the following year (TMG1995: 11–12). In 1995, railway companies as well as the ward and metro-politan governments found a total of 3,300 people who slept in publicplaces on one day (TMG 2001: 2). In Osaka, in and around Kamagasaki,the number of homeless people rose from about 1,600 to nearly 4,000between 1994 and 1998 (K. Shima 1999: 20–22). In Yokohama, in 1995,volunteer patrollers met on one day an average of around 550 homelesson several spots around Kotobuki, but the corresponding number ofencounters exceeded 1,000 by 1999 (Gill 2001: 216). In Nagoya, anothergroup of volunteer patrollers counted in areas beyond Sasajima about200 homeless in 1991, 360 in 1992, and 550 in 1994 (Mizutani and Sug-iura 1999: 61).

The size of homelessness in Japan showed upward trends throughoutthe 1990s and, in 2003, slightly more than 25,000 people were said to besleeping rough on one day (Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry 2003: 7).5

The surge of homelessness is not without its predecessor. As I will show inChapter Two, in postwar Japan, there was another time when homelessnessspread across the country. It was immediately after World War II, and, infact, much more people experienced homelessness in the early postwaryears than in the 1990s. Moreover, sizeable homelessness remained wellinto the 1960s. The recent homeless population has differed from its earliercounterparts, however; whereas the homeless populations in the earlierperiods included a number of families, women, and children, the over-whelming majority, or at least 90 percent, of the homeless in recent yearshave been middle-aged and older single men.6

In addition, while their demographic characteristics coincide withthose of the homeless in yoseba, 40–60 percent of the recent homelesspopulation had never had contact with yoseba before they became home-less. A majority of these non-yoseba men had held regular or casual jobs ina range of industries other than construction, and, while the rest had been

Introduction 7


construction day laborers, they were not from yoseba but from laborcamps elsewhere. In the early 2000s, an even higher rate of homelessnesswas found among non-yoseba men than in the 1990s (Health, Labor andWelfare Ministry 2003).


Figure 2. Map of Japan.


The question of why homelessness began to appear among non-yosebamen, especially among non-construction workers, will be dealt with in Chap-ter Two where I will also discuss plausible causes of the recent rise in home-lessness, but it needs to be mentioned here that this particular phenomenonsignified the shrinking capacity of yoseba to absorb downwardly mobile sin-gle men. For long, yoseba had taken in men who lost employment in variousindustries and turned them into day laborers. Over the years, however, thebuffer role of yoseba against unemployment had weakened.

As described below, the decline in the role of yoseba as an economicbuffer had a due effect on the movement communities in large yoseba.

Responses in large yoseba

Postwar yoseba have a history of labor struggle (Funamoto 1985; Imagawa1987; Kaji 1977; Kanzaki 1974; Takenaka 1969; Yamaoka 1996).Although different movement groups appeared and disappeared at differentpoints in time, the main current of ongoing activism in large yoseba wascreated in the early 1980s with the formation of the National Federation ofDay Laborers’ Leagues.7 The federation, comprised by the Kama, San’ya,Kotobuki, and Sasajima Leagues, representing the four largest yoseba, wasestablished for the purpose of spreading day laborers’ struggle across thecountry (Kazama 1993). Although yoseba struggle did not develop into anational movement, during the 1980s, the four groups, individually or incooperation, achieved considerable gains, including higher wages, elimina-tion of yakuza attacks on organized day labor, and better working condi-tions at inferior labor camps in which day labor was increasingly enclosed(Munemura 1993; Yamaoka 1996).

Around 1990, however, the core of movement activities in theseyoseba began to shift from labor struggle to relief giving and demanding.In Kamagasaki, the largest yoseba district in Japan with about 25,000day laborers at that time (Koyanagi 1991: 131), public employment andwelfare for older day laborers became the main demands of local move-ment groups (Koyanagi 1997). The Winter Struggle, or a commonannual event of movement communities in yoseba in which food, med-ical consultation and other services are offered to homeless day laborers,was rescheduled for year-round operation. In 1993, recognizing dramaticchanges occurring in the district with a sharp rise in homelessness, theKama League formed the Kama Coalition with a dozen religious groups,a couple of advocacy groups, and other concerned individuals in thelocale to seek a comprehensive national policy for Kamagasaki, empha-sizing public employment of older day laborers and community revital-ization (T. Honda 2001).

Introduction 9


Albeit less vigorously, similar reorganization of movement activitiesoccurred in San’ya, the second largest yoseba with about 8,000 day laborersaround 1990 (Koyanagi 1991: 131). While the San’ya League continued towork on labor disputes, as a senior member of the group put it, overall, thegroup became more like “a labor and medical consultant” than an organizerof mass action (SRFK 1992). To cope with rising homelessness, some mem-bers of the San’ya League created a patrol team to reach homeless day labor-ers in and around the district on a regular basis (Kasai 1999). Previously,patrolling was a part of San’ya’s Winter Struggle, but it was now a year-roundactivity. As patrollers walked around, they offered food and other services tothe homeless on the streets. By doing so, they studied grievances among thehomeless and how they could possibly organize them (Jinmin Patorôru Han1993). Further, during the 1993–94 Winter Struggle, the San’ya League and asmall advocacy circle in the district started a “collective kitchen” to offer anopportunity for homeless men to gather in one place and build communalrelations with each other. In the midst of this Winter Struggle, the TMGevicted homeless people in West Shinjuku and patrol team members went tothe site, eventually to form the Shinjuku Coalition.

The way in which the movement community in Kotobuki, with about5,000 day laborers (Koyanagi 1991: 131), responded to homelessness wassomewhat like that of San’ya. In 1990, a medical team, which had offeredfree medical consultation during the Winter Struggle, made this serviceavailable once a month to meet the need for the service among homelesspeople as well as flophouse dwellers in and around the district (Yajima1999). In addition, in the spring of 1993, a Kotobuki patrol team, formedby a local advocacy group and the Kotobuki League, went to KawasakiCity in response to a police assault on a day laborer that occurred at JRKawasaki station. The patrol team protested against the violence and alsoinvestigated grievances among the homeless in the locale. In 1994, the teamcreated an independent group for Kawasaki and, with homeless peoplethere, began wrestling with the city government, demanding regular wel-fare, emergency aid, safety of belongings (from confiscation), and othermeasures to improve the condition of the local homeless population(Kawasaki no Nojuku Seikatsusha Yûshi to Kawasaki Suiyô Patorôru noKai 1996, 1997).

Sasajima, used by around 1,000 day laborers as of 1990 (Koyanagi1991: 132), seems unique in that welfare was not a minor issue and receivedmuch attention long before homelessness began to grow sharply in the early1990s. Because this yoseba is not located in a flophouse quarter, wheneverhomelessness increased in the previous decades, it tended to concentrate atJR Nagoya station close to the labor market. When homelessness at the



station became highly visible after the oil crisis in 1973, a movement com-munity, which includes the Sasajima League, began to develop as concernednon-homeless individuals tackled welfare and other issues among homelessday laborers (Fujii 1994; Koyanagi 1991). Reflecting this background, themost visible response in Sasajima to the unusual growth of homelessness inthe early 1990s was a lawsuit that a homeless man, with the help of a localadvocacy group, filed in 1994 against the Nagoya City Government and thelocal welfare office that failed to provide him with welfare (Fujii 1994,1997; Hayashi Soshô wo Sasaeru Kai 2002).

Formation of new groups

The growth of homelessness led not only to reorganization and reorienta-tion of the existing movement communities in yoseba districts; it also led tothe formation of new movement, advocacy, and volunteer groups thataddressed the problem, especially in the 1990s when homelessness spreadwell beyond these districts. It is hard to know exactly how many newgroups have formed (and disbanded), but an examination of available data8

suggests that there are currently at least ten dozen groups of the kinds thatoperate more or less regularly.9 Although these groups include older onesthat formed in the 1970s and 1980s, a majority of them are of new cre-ation, or began their activity in the 1990s. Geographically new groups haveencompassed large cities across Japan, from Hokkaido on the north toKyushu on the south.

While leading figures in the movement communities of large yosebahave been veteran activists and advocates, often with unionist or New Leftbackgrounds, and other individuals long concerned with issues surroundingyoseba men, new groups have been usually led by individuals with no orlimited degrees of prior association with yoseba. They include young casualworkers, members of religious organizations, university instructors and stu-dents, and full-time activists of various origins. Albeit small in number,some groups have been entirely comprised by homeless persons, with orwithout prior contact with yoseba. These indigenous groups have emergedfrom encampments and have often looked like small neighborhood associa-tions. Also, they have usually worked closely with a non-homeless group inthe locale.

Despite differences in backgrounds, new movement, advocacy, andvolunteer groups, like their older counterparts, have very often provided atleast one of the following services to the local homeless population on aregular basis: distribution of free food, patrol of places where homelessnessconcentrates, and medical referral and consultation. When these activitiesare done in combination, the group would patrol certain places, offering

Introduction 11


food and medical consultation. Where this similarity has come from is aninteresting question. Because homelessness has been a smaller issue inJapan than in many other developed countries, groups working on home-lessness may have had better chances of knowing and learning from eachother. Or they may have learned the standard services through organiza-tional media, such as videos, newsletters and homepages. It is also possiblethat, rather than through diffusion of some kind, similar services appearedas groups tried to help solve some of the most pressing problems thathomeless persons faced in the locale.

More important for present purposes, however, is the fact that, as Ifound out through my research, the meaning of these “services” differs,depending on the orientation of the group at a given moment in time. Forexample, a movement group in full operation would do the patrol to organ-ize homeless people, to encourage indigenous participation in the patroland other activities conceived as integrated parts of the movement. Anotheron decline may do the same patrol to save homeless individuals’ life and/or,like the Shinjuku Coalition, to disseminate information on public servicesavailable for the aggrieved. Similarly, some movement groups have createda job-offering non-profit organization (NPO) to build a community ofworkers, to lay the groundwork for future collective action, while othershave done so in an effort to make up for the absence or dearth of publicemployment opportunity. Further, as it happened in Shinjuku, a volunteergroup can turn into a stubborn critic of the local homeless policy and refuseto cooperate with public officials while movement groups actively endorseit. These and other similar instances imply that the self-claimed name of agroup does not always convey the substance of its activities.

Besides new groups, some existing private organizations also becameconcerned about the homeless problem. Generally, these entities have beenlarger and much more formal than the new groups. They include well-established religious organizations, bar associations, medical doctors’ asso-ciations, and major labor unions such as Rengo Osaka. Theseorganizations usually began their activities for the aggrieved only afterhomelessness drew wide public attention. Rengo Osaka, for instance, pre-pared a policy suggestion to the central government in 1998 and sponsoreda symposium on homelessness in 1999, recognizing homelessness as a seri-ous social problem that could afflict its members (Osaka Yomiuri, February25, 1999). Activities of attorneys at legal organizations expanded as theybecame aware of a range of problems that could be alleviated with theirprofessional expertise. Today, attorneys deal with cases involving, forexample, human rights, application for welfare, and personal bankruptcy.Religious organizations have tended to focus on the sheer survival needs



among the homeless. The involvement of these organizations in the home-less issue is noteworthy because, before them, few formal, professionalorganizations had taken action for the aggrieved.

The Shinjuku Coalition

Where is exactly the Shinjuku Coalition located in the organizational devel-opments described above? It is between the changing movement commu-nity in San’ya and the formation of new groups addressing homelessness.On the one hand, the Shinjuku Coalition reflected the reorganization andreorientation of the San’ya community as two leaders who stayed with themovement were originally members of the patrol team of the San’yaLeague. On the other hand, the Coalition was one of the new groups thatformed outside yoseba against the backdrop of rising homelessness in dif-ferent parts of cities. For the two leaders, Shinjuku was a relatively newplace as well as for a third leader, who was from a group in Shibuya thatfought for undocumented Iranian immigrants. Shinjuku was not thegroup’s field, either, and, although it had some contact with San’ya before1994, the contact was very limited.

The Shinjuku Coalition is unique in that it was one of the earliestmass-based movement groups in Japan that focused on the problem ofhomelessness and pursued policy to reduce it. The group is unique also inthat, as I mentioned before, it formed and led the movement in Tokyo andalso succeeded in national mobilization of the homeless albeit for a shortperiod of time. Tracing the history of the Coalition, therefore, enables us tocapture the development of and some of the central features of homelesspolicies in Tokyo and Japan.

At the same time, in many ways, the Shinjuku Coalition was similarto other mass-based movement groups on homelessness. First, like othergroups, the Coalition was a loosely, rather than formally, structured group.Second, the group consisted of a small number of non-homeless activists,who took leadership, and a larger number of homeless individuals, whoparticipated in standard activities and collective action events more or lessregularly. Third, turnover was high among homeless regulars.10 In Shin-juku, some left the movement when they obtained welfare or employment.Some of them came back to rejoin it for one reason or another. Othersremained with the Coalition for a long period of time as currently home-less. Still others did not join the Coalition while they were homeless butbecame regularly involved after they got off the streets. Finally, whileturnover was high among non-homeless members as well, there were a fewcommitted ones, similar to many other movement groups. In Shinjuku, sev-eral non-homeless activists were present at the beginning of the movement,

Introduction 13


but one eventually left for Shibuya to create another movement group.Another died in a traffic accident shortly after the Coalition formed (Mitsu1995). However, the aforementioned three remained throughout the struggle.

Among the three, most committed was Takai. Originally from San’ya,he had long been interested in organizing homeless people. He assumed thetop leadership position in the Shinjuku Coalition, and chaired meetings,spoke for the group, and wrote almost all regular flyers, official statements,and letters of request. Also from San’ya was Harada, who became a sub-leader of the group. He worked primarily to plan, coordinate, and lead col-lective action events in which homeless people as well as other movementgroups participated. Takai and Harada were both in their 30s when theCoalition formed. Another sub-leader was Irino, a younger activist fromShibuya. His primary role was to take care of welfare and advocacy activi-ties. Takai and Harada left the patrol team upon the inception of the Coali-tion. Takai also left the San’ya League permanently as he became busy inShinjuku. Harada retained his membership in the San’ya League because,unlike Takai, he belonged to a New Left group whose main activitiesincluded those in San’ya.11 Later, Harada assumed an important position inthe National Federation of Day Laborers’ Leagues. Irino was a studentmember of the Shibuya group for Iranian immigrants, but, like Takai, even-tually left the group to work solely for the Coalition in Shinjuku.

THE MOVEMENT IN TOKYO IN THE RELATIONALPERSPECTIVE

To explain the emergence and development of the movement in Tokyo andthe gains achieved by the challengers, the present study draws on the rela-tional perspective. The relational perspective was recently put forward bypolitical process analysts (McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly 2001), but it differsfrom the political process perspective in three important ways. First, toexplain movement emergence, the new perspective leads us to examinedynamic interactions among actors that unfolded well before initial mobi-lization took place. Second, the perspective activates what the politicalprocess approach treats as static variables to explain changes in action.That is, rather than treat such notions as opportunities (for action), mobi-lizing structures (or ties and networks among the aggrieved), and frames (ofopportunities, issues, and identities) as objectively given causes of changesin action, the perspective sees them as subject to active creation and appro-priation. Third, in the relational perspective, not only challengers but alsotheir opponents, especially the state, engage in such creation and appropri-ation. The state is no longer a static entity, as it is conceptualized in the



political process perspective, but an active participant in movements thatcontinuously interacts with challengers. The state and challengers respondto each other in action, attribution, and framing, sometimes transformingthe course of interaction itself.

In analyzing the movement in Tokyo, this study adopts these premisesas well as the concept of relational mechanism. Relational mechanismsdenote actions or events that alter connections among actors (McAdam,Tarrow, and Tilly 2001). In this study, I present as the main actors of themovement in Tokyo (1) non-homeless activists who led the Shinjuku Coali-tion, (2) homeless people in Shinjuku, including regulars, and (3) their tar-gets, in particular, the TMG and the Shinjuku Ward Government (SWG). Iask 1) what specific relational mechanisms changed the relations among thethree parties to the movement, and 2) how these tripartite relations wereassociated with goals, tactics, and gains on the part of the challengers. Forthe movement under study, I identify brokerage, repression, and certifica-tion as the key mechanisms that altered the tripartite relations. I argue thatthe ongoing tripartite relations in turn shaped the goals and tactics of thechallengers, thereby producing a unique set of gains under the given rela-tions. In what follows, I outline the story that I tell in the book on the basisof the relational perspective.

* * *

The movement in Tokyo emerged in early 1994 when the TMG evictedhomeless persons in an encampment in West Shinjuku and non-homelessactivists in San’ya and Shibuya responded to the eviction. Yet, long before itemerged, significant interactions had begun between the SWG and homelesspeople in Shinjuku. Recognizing the TMG’s plan to relocate its headquartersfrom Chiyoda to Shinjuku Ward as a great opportunity for the well-being ofthe town, in 1980, the SWG initiated what it called a “clean-up movement” tomake the town look good for the relocation. This movement, which lastedinto the 1990s, included patrols to chase homeless people away. During theperiod, the homeless resisted the movement in a number of ways, but mostthreatening to the local authorities as well as businesses was the creation in1993 of an encampment on the west side of JR Shinjuku station, which wasless than a mile away from the newly built TMG complex. Pressured by localbusiness associations and its own pending plan for road improvement in WestShinjuku, in February 1994, the TMG took action by conducting a large-scaleeviction of the homeless in the encampment.

This in turn gave an opportunity to San’ya’s patrol team that hadbeen interested in organizing the homeless beyond the district. Members of

Introduction 15


the patrol team appropriated what social organization existed among thehomeless at the site, framed the homeless as “laborers” instead of“vagrants” (as they were called by local officials), and introduced to thesite familiar activities in San’ya, such as regular patrol and food serving. Inso doing, the activists organized a series of direct action protests at the pub-lic agencies involved in the eviction in an effort to restore the encampment.Growing numbers of homeless persons participated in these protests, andthey developed into a sustained interaction with the public agencies as theseagencies kept responding to the protestors in highly provoking ways. Sev-eral non-homeless activists and homeless people in the encampment thenformed the Shinjuku Coalition and began pursuing public guarantee ofemployment and livelihood.

Throughout the struggle, the Coalition upheld the goal of public guar-antee of employment and livelihood, but its operational goals as well as tacti-cal choices changed as it interacted with its targets. The operational goals theCoalition pursued were (1) mass negotiations, (2) communal protection, and(3) policy to help the homeless get off the streets. Its tactics largely involved(1) non-normative, direct action tactics, (2) non-institutional but acceptabletactics, and (3) institutional tactics. Using these tactics, the group achieved(1) “collective benefits,” which benefited all homeless people in Shinjuku(and sometimes beyond), and (2) a “selective benefit,” which benefited a lim-ited segment of the homeless population. Over time, operational goals, tac-tics, and gains shifted from the former toward the latter, although theysometimes coexisted or overlapped. To show how they shifted, I analyticallydivide the movement into three periods on the basis of the key relationalmechanisms that changed the tripartite relations. The three periods are (1)the initial period (early 1994-early 1996) following brokerage; (2) the transi-tional period (early 1996-late 1997) marked by repression; and (3) the finalperiod (late 1997-mid 2002) beginning with certification.

The initial period began with brokerage by the activists from San’ya.Brokerage brought homeless people in West Shinjuku into direct, con-tentious interaction with SWG and TMG officials. In doing so, it alsobrought the activists close to the homeless in and around the encampment.Brokerage led to solidaristic relations between the activists and the home-less on the one hand, and antagonistic relations between the two partiesand their common opponents on the other. Within a communal setting, thetwo parties set the overriding goal as well as the operational goals of massnegotiations and communal protection on the basis of common interests asopposed to the interests of the officials. The tripartite relations enabled thechallengers to use disruptive tactics throughout the initial period and anumber of collective benefits followed.



The transitional period began when the TMG repressed the ShinjukuCoalition by dismantling the encampment in West Shinjuku, arrestingTakai and Harada during an anti-eviction campaign, and depriving thegroup of direct access to TMG officials. Although the Coalition soon recre-ated an encampment in the station area, it no longer served as a communitybecause it permanently lost the spatial arrangements conducive to move-ment activities. The group also lost the key leaders for eight months anddirect access to TMG officials for the entire period. The absence of the keyleaders weakened the solidaristic relations between the leadership and thehomeless, while the lack of direct contact between the group and TMGofficials weakened antagonistic relations between the two. When Takai andHarada rejoined the movement, they shifted their attention from commu-nal protection to mass negotiations and policy, although the homeless weremost interested in spatial maintenance in the absence of a workable home-less policy. The tripartite relations rarely allowed the Coalition to use dis-ruptive tactics, and it achieved only one collective benefit.

The final period of the movement began with certification by the wel-fare branch of the TMG. Welfare officials at the TMG not only acceptedmass negotiations with the aggrieved but also recognized the Coalition as alegitimate group representing the interests of the homeless in Shinjuku.With this certification, the relations between the non-homeless leaders ofthe Coalition and welfare officials at the TMG became closer while thosebetween the leaders and the homeless became more distant. The Coalitionleadership created a dual internal structure in an effort to control the move-ment and began to mobilize homeless people on an individual rather thancommunal basis. The leadership abandoned communal protection andfocused on policy. It first sought a homeless policy in Tokyo in cooperationwith the TMG officials and then sought a national homeless policy withlegislators and administrators. These developments isolated the homeless inShinjuku because their spatial and communal concerns were left unat-tended while the leadership pursued its own agenda. In the final period, thecertified status enabled the Coalition to achieve a couple of gains withoutusing direct action tactics, but one of these gains was selective in nature.

The most important component of Tokyo’s homeless policy was theprovision of several year-round homeless shelters designed to help theaggrieved seek private, full-time employment while staying fed and shel-tered for a few months. These shelters, called “self-sustenance support cen-ters,” were meant for a small, “elite” segment of the homeless populationin the city who seemed ready to get off the streets through employment.Yet, it was not a promising measure even for homeless persons so qualified,given their past employment status and current housing status as well as the

Introduction 17


depressed economy. In fact, the proportion of center users who perma-nently got off the streets was extremely small. By working with four othermovement groups based in San’ya, Shibuya, and Ikebukuro, the ShinjukuCoalition helped open three of these centers. Takai’s original plan was tobring public jobs into the facilities once they became available, but he failedbecause the alliance in Tokyo broke up as it engaged in a protracted cam-paign for these facilities. This development disappointed many of thehomeless who struggled with the Coalition to win them.

The Shinjuku Coalition then began to pursue national goals as thecentral government announced emergency homeless measures and showedinterest in having a homeless assistance act. Harada pursued a fuller policythan the emergency measures prepared by administrators while Takai andIrino pursued passage of a homeless assistance bill introduced by legisla-tors. The leadership, as well as movement and advocacy groups acrossJapan, split over the bill for it hinted eviction once it passed. Harada, withhis colleagues, mobilized homeless people from across the country for aworkable national policy while Takai and Irino joined the Kama Coalitionand other groups to support pro-act legislators. These moves, however, didnot excite homeless people in Shinjuku not simply because the targets werefar above them but also because their relations with the leadership hadweakened. In the final analysis, the Coalition leadership exerted little influ-ence at the national level. By the time the bill passed in mid-2002, Takaiand Irino in effect turned the Coalition into a pressure group. Later in theyear, Takai created an NPO with an advocacy group in Shinjuku to begintheir own employment program. Irino in the mid-2001 had become a direc-tor of another, larger advocacy group offering various services to the home-less. Some time later, Harada left the movement to assume familyresponsibilities.

RESEARCH METHODS

To trace the history of the movement in Tokyo, I relied on three sets ofdata. The first set consists of materials from the Shinjuku Coalition andother movement, advocacy, and volunteer groups as well as larger, formalorganizations that have worked on homelessness in one way or another.These materials include flyers, newsletters, newspapers, reports, videos,pictures, internal records and memos, public statements, petitions, letters ofrequest, and published books and booklets. The majority of the materialscome from the Shinjuku Coalition and other movement groups in Tokyo. Itried to be exhaustive especially with what the Shinjuku Coalition pro-duced, by itself or through commission. Unpublished, written documents



by the Coalition alone have amounted to 28 one-inch-thick binders. Theother materials are from groups and organizations in Tokyo, Osaka, Yoko-hama, Nagoya, and several other cities. I collected them to seek referencesto the movement in Tokyo and to know about the groups and organiza-tions themselves.

The second set of data originates from my own fieldwork and inter-views. I began mixing with movement groups in Tokyo in August 1998. Iattended their summer festivals and some of their weekly activities. Istarted intensive fieldwork in January 1999 and continued it until April2001. During this period, I participated in most of the collective actionevents that the Shinjuku Coalition sponsored, independently or with othermovement groups in Tokyo. Toward the end of my fieldwork, I also joinedCoalition-led rallies and demonstrations that targeted the central govern-ment. Besides these events, I attended the weekly activities of the Coalition,i.e., food service, patrols, meetings, and collective application for welfare,as well as some of its annual events, such as the Winter Struggle and sum-mer festivals. The frequency of my presence in the weekly activities varied; Ijoined food service and patrols most often and meetings and application forwelfare, occasionally. In addition, I went to San’ya, Shibuya, and Ike-bukuro to take part in some of the activities of the local movement groups.Further, I participated twice in the annual convention of advocacy groupson day labor and homelessness operating in different parts of Japan.

In addition to exchanging casual conversations in the field, I inter-viewed a few dozen currently and formerly homeless persons who weredeeply involved in and/or well informed of the activities of the ShinjukuCoalition. I also interviewed several currently and formerly homelesspersons who worked closely with the movement groups in San’ya,Shibuya, and Ikebukuro (see Appendix C for details of these interviews).I conducted some of the interviews during my fieldwork and others afterI finished it. To assure accuracy, before I began interviewing, I prepared along chronological table of movement events by using the first set ofdata. When necessary, I showed this table to my interviewees to helpthem collect their memory. I further set up a few lengthy interview ses-sions with the Coalition’s top leader because, in the field, he was usuallymuch less open and accessible than the sub-leaders of the group.Through the sessions, I learned his interpretation of the movement andview of the homeless constituency. I also cross-checked my materials as Iinterviewed him.

When I conducted fieldwork, there were several non-homeless volun-teers who came to the weekly activities of the Coalition to assist homelesspeople in trouble. I interviewed a few of them who came to the site most

Introduction 19


frequently, to make sure that I did not miss any important event surround-ing the movement.

The third set of data was derived from all other sources, including themedia, academia, and government of all levels. The materials include news-paper articles, television programs, videos, reports, journals, books, andinternal and public announcements. The written and visual data are gener-ally about collective protests by the homeless, stories of homeless individu-als and groups, policy and programs targeting the homeless, and othermatters associated with homelessness. During and after my fieldwork, anumber of seminars and symposiums were held in Tokyo to study and/ordiscuss issues of homelessness. Whenever possible, I attended these eventsas they often invited as discussants public officials, professionals (e.g.,lawyers and researchers), and other individuals who once worked on home-lessness or were currently involved in the issue. I took the opportunities toask them, usually individually, questions about their experience with and/orview of the homeless problem and the movement in Tokyo. This practicegreatly enhanced my understanding of the subject of this study.

ORGANIZATION OF CHAPTERS

Before I examine the movement in Tokyo, in Chapter Two, I provide anoverview of homelessness in postwar Japan and discuss plausible causes ofor preconditions for the recent growth in homelessness. Homelessness didnot grow suddenly in the 1990s but appeared in large scale after the end ofWorld War II and some persisted well into the 1960s. The chapter firsttraces the growth and decline of homelessness in the two decades followingthe war end and then explains the reappearance of much homelessness inthe 1990s. I plan to show how shifts in the industrial structure and govern-ment policy as well as urban redevelopment that proceeded in the 1980spaved the way for a rapid increase in homelessness in the 1990s.

In Chapter Three, I lay the theoretical and empirical foundation ofthe present analysis. I first discuss the RM and political process perspec-tives of social movements some elements of which this study criticallyincorporates. I then introduce and examine some of the most systematicstudies on mobilization among the homeless in the United States in orderto draw attention to complexities that mixed movements such as the onein Tokyo tend to display. I will make the point that, while external col-laborators can play a significant role in improving the lives of theaggrieved, their relations with the constituency can change in ways thatconstrain movement gains. Finally, I elaborate the relational perspectiveas it pertains to the present study and define the concepts of collective



and selective benefits. I also summarize arguments which may apply toother mixed movements.

Chapters Four–Six correspond to the three periods of the movementthat I specified earlier. They are (1) the initial period (early 1994-early1996) following brokerage; (2) the transitional period (early 1996-late1997) following repression; and (3) the final period (late 1997-mid 2002)following certification. Each of these chapters examines the interactionamong the main parties to the movement, the ongoing relations amongthem, and the effect of these relations on goals, tactics, and gains of thechallengers. Chapter Four details how the future parties to the movementinteracted before the initial mobilization took place and how non-homelessactivists from San’ya subsequently organized the “unorganizable.” ChapterFive shows how spatial rearrangement of the encampment and the absenceof the key leaders of the Coalition weakened the relations between the lead-ership and the homeless. In Chapter Six, I show how TMG official’s accept-ance of the Coalition as a negotiator interacted with the ongoing internalrelations to the disadvantage of the aggrieved. At the end of the chapter, Ibriefly summarize my answers to the questions that I posed at the begin-ning of this chapter, and discuss some of the lessons that we might be ableto learn from the experience of the movement in Tokyo.

Introduction 21



Chapter Two

Homelessness in Postwar Japan

This chapter traces postwar history of homelessness in Japan and discussesplausible causes of its recent growth. In postwar Japan, one can identify acouple of times when homelessness increased sharply across the country;one is immediately after World War II, which ended in August 1945, andthe other is around 1992 when the Japanese economy was hit by the worstrecession since the war end. I first show how homelessness rose rapidly inthe aftermath of the war and how it persisted into the 1960s. I then charac-terize the more recent homeless population and explain why it began togrow rapidly in the early 1990s. I attribute the sharp growth of homeless-ness to three broad processes that unfolded in the 1980s in relation to eco-nomic globalization: (1) a shift from a manufacturing to a service economy;(2) urban redevelopment and gentrification; and (3) shifts in governmentpolicy toward deregulation and privatization. Yoseba men began to experi-ence long-term homelessness in the 1980s because their proneness to home-lessness interacted with parallel developments in the yoseba system.

HOMELESSNESS BETWEEN THE 1940s AND THE 1970s

The single most dramatic increase in homelessness in postwar Japanoccurred immediately after World War II. The direct cause of the increasewas Japan’s defeat; it threw the country into a catastrophic state and madenumerous people homeless. Already toward the war end, homelessnessbegan to increase especially in large cities as people lost housing due tointensive air raids and, in the case of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, atomicbombs. In Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Yokohama, and Hiroshima, by August1945, 50 to 80 percent of the housing stocks that existed in 1943 weregone (Matsuo 1975a: 38) because of bombings and, to a lesser extent, relo-cation of housing to suburban and rural areas. While many city residents

23


had moved to these areas to escape fire, with or without housing reloca-tion, others had remained in the city, sometimes losing housing and, atother times, life.

With the end of the war, homelessness rose rapidly in these and othercities as growing numbers of people found themselves jobless and house-less. According to a rough government estimate, during a two-monthperiod following the war, a total of 7.6 million soldiers were demobilized, 4million military factory workers were fired, and 1.5 million civiliansreturned from Korea and other parts of the world that Japan had colonizedor occupied (Matsuo 1975a: 40). Thus, more than 13 million people weresaid to be jobless at the time of the war end. The majority of these peopleshortly secured housing because they were from agrarian villages that werelargely left intact; they returned home to regain housing. They also securedemployment in agriculture (MITI 1954). Many others, in cities, obtained atleast temporary housing by moving to the suburbs and beyond or parts ofthe city that escaped fire. However, some had no choice other than sleepingin air-raid shelters that had been built before the war end, in shacks thatwere constructed with whatever materials left in the ruins, or on the streets.Immediately after the war, more than 400,000 households were estimatedto stay in air-raid shelters and shacks (Ueno 1958: 86), and perhaps tens ofthousands individuals slept on the streets. In Tokyo, about 93,000 house-holds, or 310,000 people, were in these types of self-made structures (TMG1972: 141) while thousands of others, including war orphans, were said tobe on the streets.

Government response to the widespread homelessness was largely apatchwork of emergency measures, which in no way succeeded in eliminat-ing it. One early measure planned by the central government was to pro-vide, within the year 1945, 300,000 relief housing units for war-damagedhouseholds that were now in shacks (Ueno 1958: 13). However, it offeredonly 81,000 such units by March 1946 (ibid.). Although about 160,000units were added between 1946 and 1949 (ibid.), they were hardly suffi-cient to meet the housing needs of shack dwellers.

Another measure was welfare. In 1946, the government, in responseto a command by the General Headquarters of the Allied Forces (GHQ),prepared emergency relief and enacted a Livelihood Protection Law. Theformer consisted of food, lodging, clothing, and other necessities of life,but, again, it was hardly sufficient and reached only a small portion of thedestitute (Shibata 1998). The latter made available a public assistance pro-gram that reflected the GHQ’s effort to demilitarize Japanese society(Soeda 1995). The country’s welfare had favored the military class and,against the GHQ’s quest for “public” assistance, the government initially



tried to depend on private organizations for welfare. The law was anachievement in that it clarified the government’s responsibility, as a princi-ple, to provide for all the poor in need of public protection. The livelihoodprotection program covered large numbers of people—a total of 1.64 mil-lion in 1949 and 2.04 million in 1950 (ibid.: 33). However, it assured littlemore than minimum food intake because benefit levels were so low; in1948 when they reached the highest level since the enactment of the law,they were still below 40 percent of the average living expenses of allhouseholds in Japan, the majority of which were poor by any standard(ibid.: 24).

A third component of the welfare measure was to place homeless peo-ple in welfare facilities, especially those on the streets. This practice, alsobased on the GHQ’s command, began before the emergency relief and thepublic assistance program mentioned above, because this form of homeless-ness threatened public order. In Tokyo, at the time of war end, there wasonly one welfare facility that the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG)operated directly. In a six-month period from September 1945, the govern-ment of Tokyo sent a total of 3,603 street homeless to the facility (Iwata1995: 61). In 1946, the same facility received a total of 11,442 homeless(ibid.). In Osaka, between November 1945 and March 1948, the city’s con-sultation center for the homeless and people at risk of homelessness dealtwith a total of 11,648 homeless men alone (Honma 1988: 105). In Nagoya,the number of homeless sheltered through outreach reached its peak in1947 at 3,696 (Tamaki 1995: 78). To contain the homeless, local govern-ments opened welfare facilities one after another. According to a 1953national survey of all types of welfare facilities, nearly 40 percent of the1,279 units that existed in Japan in that year had been newly set upbetween 1946 and 1950 (Iwata 1995: 90). Among other types of welfarefacilities, the newly created ones heavily concentrated on rehab centers andlodging houses, known as “vagrants’ camps” at that time.

The problem with this practice was that it was forceful and resisted by“vagrants,” especially able-bodied ones, including children. Institutionaliza-tion of homeless people on the streets accompanied what was calledkarikomi whose meaning is close to “hunting” in English. In Tokyo, forexample, “hunting” teams drove to places where homeless people congre-gated, put them on vehicles, and drove them to welfare facilities (Iwata1995). Because able-bodied persons wanted jobs rather than a filthy,crowded shelter, they often ran away from the facility or, if they stayed,spent the day time working outside (ibid.). In Tokyo, recognizing it better toput some of these persons in rental facilities, the TMG helped private enti-ties run “tent hotels” and flophouses in several parts of the city, including

Homelessness in Postwar Japan 25


San’ya. By April 1947, these rental facilities grew to shelter a total of47,000 homeless people at a time (Imagawa 1987: 30–31). San’ya, with along history as a cheap lodging district, was flattened by an air raid inMarch 1945, but shortly revived as a day laborers’ quarter partly becauseof this arrangement (Iwata 1995).

A final measure against homelessness was employment. One way inwhich homeless people regained employment and often lodging wasthrough the demand for day labor created by the GHQ, which needed man-ual labor for various purposes, including preparation of infrastructure tooccupy Japan, securement of petty services to run the daily business, andoperation of military bases and ports. To meet the demand, in 1946, thegovernment opened up recruitment centers in 83 places across the country(Imagawa1987: 148). Many homeless people, especially single and mobileones, responded to this demand, including those in San’ya. The governmentalso encouraged homeless people to move to Hokkaido and Kyushu towork in coal mines (Honma 1988). Especially after 1946, to reconstructthe economy, the government adopted a priority production system thatemphasized the coal and steel industries (Matsuo 1975b). Labor wasneeded in the coal industry to make up the loss of Korean and Chineselabor; a number of Korean and Chinese people had been forced into Japanto labor for this and other industries, but many went home after the coun-tries won territorial freedom from Japan. Homeless people took this oppor-tunity, too, including those who were once sheltered in welfare facilities.1

Compared to other measures, employment received scant attentionbecause the government saw homelessness as a matter of relief and publicorder rather than an issue of employment (Yoshida 1993, 1994). It intro-duced a public employment program in 1946, but the program mainly ben-efited the elderly and war widows (Matsuo 1975c), who presumably hadan address. The private sector did not offer much employment opportunity,either, especially in the formal sector in which even large firms were busytrying to fire, rather than hire, employees (Ôkôchi 1955). Under the cir-cumstances, homeless people strived to survive on their own. Some workedas black market brokers or as their hands; after the war, black marketssprang up all over Japan as the ration system had ceased to bring sufficientnecessities of life. Others took petty jobs on the streets, such as street vend-ing and rag picking. Rag picking grew into a popular job among people inshacks. For women, street prostitution was another popular job in the earlypostwar years (K. Takahashi 1999; Yoshida 1993).

Literature referring to public measures on homelessness and direpoverty in the aftermath of World War II generally indicates that they failedto cope adequately with the phenomena. The failure must be seen within



the context of the disastrous condition of the economy. By the end of thewar, Japan had lost one-fourth of the wealth that it had a decade earlier(Economic Planning Agency 1993: 11). Production and distribution sys-tems were either destroyed or paralyzed, and there was a severe shortage ofraw materials (Yoshida 1993). By August 1945, mining and manufacturingindustries produced less than one-tenth of what they did on average in a1934–1936 period (Y. Andô et al. 1977: 249). The agrarian sector did notdo any better. In 1945, it experienced the poorest harvest since 1905 (Mat-suo 1975a: 40), and in the following years, massive inflows of returneesfrom abroad worsened food shortages both in rural and urban areas (Fuji-wara 1975). In addition, the government was heavily in debt because ofmilitary spending during the war.2

Nevertheless, it is wrong to assume that the inadequacy of measuresstemmed from the disastrous economy alone. Despite the debt, the gov-ernment continued to spend to make up losses for military firms and per-sonnel—losses that resulted from the demise of the war economy.3 It alsoallowed banks to generously finance these firms.4 Although the govern-ment explained that these decisions were to help military firms switch tocivilian production and curb war-induced inflation, the decisions, in fact,accelerated inflation because the government did not introduce a policyto increase production, which was needed to fulfill the alleged purpose(Economic Planning Agency 1993). The only measures that the govern-ment took to raise production levels was to increase the availability ofraw materials by promoting production of coals and, with the military,selling to private firms war materials that it had.5 However, coal produc-tion did not rise much, and firms, because of inflation, channeled a largeportion of the munitions into speculative and under-the-counter tradingto make easy gains rather than to resume production. The governmentthus failed to reduce inflation, delayed economic recovery, and, by doingso, ensured that a significant number of homeless people were insuffi-ciently attended at best.

Economic recovery began rather abruptly with the outbreak of theKorean War in June 1950. The war created huge demand for goods andservices in Japan. Domestic demand grew, too, following wage rises andincome tax cuts (MITI 1954). Accordingly, production in mining and man-ufacturing exceeded the prewar level6 within the year 1950 (Y. Andô et al.1977: 327). The real GNP recovered its prewar level in 1951 (ibid.), andper capita real income, almost in 1952 (MITI 1954: 76). In the mid-1950s,Japan further entered the high growth period, bolstered by technologicaltransfers from the United States, cheap raw materials from developingcountries, and abundant labor from domestic agrarian areas (Itoh 1990).



From 1961 until 1973 when the growth period ended, the Japanese econ-omy grew annually at an astonishing rate of 9.4 percent on average (ibid.:140). Growth was led by the heavy and chemical industries, which vigor-ously invested in plants and equipment while using low-cost domestic laborand foreign materials.

The remarkable economic recovery and growth created muchemployment. Employment rose especially in mining, manufacturing, con-struction, and services. Between 1947 and 1965, the number of jobs in thenon-service industries more than doubled, from 7. 4 to 15.2 million (Itoh1990: 146). In the same period, the number of jobs in services increasedeven faster, from 7.7 to 20.7 million (ibid.). The expansion of employmentopportunities helped reduce homelessness and it also functioned to preventit. Thus, by August 1955, a decade after the surge of homelessness, thenumber of housing units needed for people in shacks, air-raid shelters, andother places that were not considered as housing, including “under thebridge,” had decreased to 75,000 (Ueno 1958: 50–51). In the late 1950s, agroup of researchers who traveled across Japan to study the condition oflower-stratum people estimated that a total of 40,000–50,000 people sleptin shacks and 8,000 others, on the streets (Akiyama, Mori, and Yamashita1960a: 81). At about the same time, the TMG counted 4,500 homeless,including 463 street homeless, on one day (ibid.: 31). By the end of the1960s, homelessness in Japan became largely invisible.

The decline in homelessness was also aided by the growing availabil-ity of housing. In the first half of the 1950s, a total of nearly 2 millionhousing units were created (Ueno 1958: 13); in the subsequent decade, 6.6million others were added (Kido 1990: 79). While large proportions ofthese units were built by “self-help” or ordinary people’s own efforts, thegovernment, too, contributed to the rising availability of housing. In 1950,it established the Housing Loan Corporation to provide low-interest loansfor home ownership and ownership of rental housing. In 1951, it turnedthe earlier relief housing program for war-damaged households into a per-manent public housing program for low-income households. Further, in1955, the Japan Housing Corporation began to build rental housing andsubdivisions. While this Corporation benefited better-off people, the firstand second programs helped reduce and prevent homelessness. The Hous-ing Loan Corporation financed 245,000 units between 1951 and 1955 andabout one million others in the following decade (ibid.). The public housingprogram directly supplied 224,000 units between 1951 and 1955 and474,000 others between 1956 and 1965 (ibid.).

In the high growth period, the government further contributed to thedecline in homelessness by enriching social security programs, especially in



social insurance and public assistance (Shibata 1998). In 1959, it started anational health insurance program whose main beneficiaries were low-income households. In the same year, it also began a national pension pro-gram, which exempted low-income households from paying premiums. In1961, public assistance offered under the Livelihood Protection Law beganto grow. This law differed from the earlier one, which was enacted in 1946.The law, which continues to be effective today, was implemented in 1950 toprovide housing assistance in addition to livelihood, medical, and a fewother types of assistance. Although the program was cut in the 1950s, ben-efits levels doubled in the first half of the 1960s and kept rising in the restof the growth period. It was a reflection of the government’s introductionat the beginning of the 1960s of an income-doubling plan that emphasizedsocial security to build a modern welfare state (Soeda 1995: 120, 179).With higher benefit levels, the livelihood protection program covered1.3–1.6 million people every year between 1965 and 1973 (ibid.: 187).

The figures that I cited earlier to indicate a substantial decline inhomelessness from the early postwar years suggest, however, that sizeablehomelessness remained in the 1950s and 1960s despite all these develop-ments. Part of the reason lies in the inadequacy of earlier measures, includ-ing inflationary measures. In the late 1940s, Japan’s escalating inflationurged the United States to press the government to cut spending and theBank of Japan to cut financing. Inflation stopped as a result, but a recessiontriggered by the deflationary policy added homelessness under the condi-tion that only poor measures were available to reduce war-induced home-lessness and dire poverty. Thus, when the Korean War broke out in 1950,there was much homelessness in cities.

To fully understand the reason behind the persistent homelessness inthe 1950s and 1960s, however, we need to look into the limits of theexpanded economy, housing and social security in these decades. The eco-nomic recovery and growth were limited in that jobs that they broughtabout were mostly low-income, precarious ones. This can be seen ingrowth of casual labor at large firms and in growth of smaller firms (ormedium-sized and small firms as well as petty enterprises). In the early1950s, large firms in the leading heavy and chemical industries tried to savelabor costs by hiring casual labor and using small firms that they increas-ingly organized in subcontracting systems. According to a major survey of134 large manufacturers conducted by the government, between June 1950and March 1952, the numbers of contract workers, workers from smallsubcontractors, and day laborers working at these firms rose by 34–42 per-cent on average while the number of regular workers rose by only 6 percenton average (Economic Planning Agency 1993: 394). Growth of small firms



was also pronounced; in all non-agrarian industries, in a single yearbetween 1952 and 1953, the number of family and self-employed workersin small and petty businesses more than doubled from about 300,000 to730,000 (ibid.: 469).

In the high growth period, the use of casual labor spread to smallerfirms. Between 1958 and 1959, for instance, the number of day laborersincreased in manufacturing firms of different sizes (employing at least 30workers) (Hosokawa 1966: 140). Also, in the first half of the 1960s, theshare of workers from subcontractors rose prominently in manufacturingfirms, larger or smaller (ibid.: 141). The growth period also saw the contin-uing expansion of smaller firms. Throughout the 1960s, smaller firms in allindustries kept increasing in number.7 In 1960, the numbers of medium-sized firms and workers in these firms were about 270,000 and 3 million,respectively; by 1969, the former grew 4 times and the latter, 2.3 times(Ôhashi 1972: 109–110). In the same period, the numbers of small andpetty businesses and their employees rose from 470,000 and 7.4 million to700,000 and 8 million, respectively (ibid.). By 1975, smaller firmsaccounted for 99.5 percent of all firms in manufacturing and 99.2 percentin services (Kikuoka 1980: 20).8

The problem with these developments was that casual workers inlarge firms and workers in smaller enterprises enjoyed lower levels of wagesand employment security than regular workers in large firms. Both in themanufacturing and service sectors, smaller firms were competitive andworkers in these firms tended to lose jobs much more easily than regularworkers in large firms. Smaller firms were also vulnerable to economicdownturns; many went bankrupt when a recession began. Thus, while thegrowth of precarious jobs and firms did help reduce and prevent homeless-ness, the very jobs and firms were also the breeding grounds of homeless-ness. Besides, for those who had been homeless from the early postwaryears, it was difficult to obtain decent jobs because they had no address andbecause they often lacked required skills.

If more employment meant more low-income, precarious jobs, thenmore low-cost housing had to be provided. This did take place, but thekinds of housing that became available to low-income workers in the peri-ods of economic recovery and rapid growth were rather precarious just liketheir jobs. The main type of housing for low-income workers in the 1950sand 1960s was the wooden tenement house. These houses were owned bypetty landlords with little public financial support. Between 1952 and1959, the share of rental units (or rough equivalents of tenement houses atthat time) in the total housing stock increased steadily from 32 to 45 per-cent, and maintained 40 percent levels in most of the 1960s (Mizumoto



1977: 119). The reliance on tenement housing occurred because the gov-ernment’s housing policy was directed to industrial growth rather than tobetter housing welfare among low-income workers. This manifested notonly in the smallness of the public housing program but also in limited reg-ulations of the housing market and strong encouragement of home owner-ship to enrich housing industries (Yamazaki 1998).

In addition to tenement housing, especially for young employees atpetty shops in the service sector, live-in arrangements were the norm(Akiyama, Mori, and Yamashita 1960c). And for single male day labor-ers, labor camps as well as flophouses in yoseba and other low-incomeneighborhoods provided shelter. We may distinguish here between yosebamen and day laborers on a relief work program, popularly called shittai.While earlier day laborers worked for the GHQ, their counterparts inlater years worked for domestic private firms and for the government.The public relief work program began in 1949 in response to labor unrestamong the victims of the deflationary recession. The program used bothmen and women and involved white- and blue-collar jobs. As of 1965, atleast one million men and women worked as day laborers across thecountry (Eguchi 1969: 27), and some were on the relief work program. Anumber of men on the program worked as manual laborers at the sites ofconstruction and port and surface transport. The government neededmuch labor of this kind to build infrastructure for industries and to facili-tate trade. While some of these male day laborers stayed in yoseba dis-tricts, the majority of shittai workers were in private rental units andprobably public housing units.

A significant proportion of the male day labor force was independentof the relief work program, especially singles. While staying in labor campsand flophouses and cheap apartments in and around yoseba, they engagedin manual labor mainly in manufacturing, construction, and transport. It isnot a coincidence, therefore, that yoseba districts, such as San’ya and Kam-agasaki, grew rapidly in the 1950s and 1960s. By the latter half of the1950s, San’ya had some 200 flophouses, and in 1964, the flophouse popu-lation reached its peak at 15,000 (Eguchi 1969: 20). The population ofKamagasaki, which has a long history as a cheap lodging quarter likeSan’ya, reached its peak in 1960, with 36,000 people staying in the area(Mizuno 1993: 229). Around that time, there were a few hundred flop-houses and pay-by-the-day apartment houses in Kamagasaki (Isomura1962: 144). The population of Kotobuki also grew, to reach around 8,000to 10,000 in the 1960s (Umezawa 1995: 40). The main inhabitants of theseyoseba districts were yoseba men, although they were also populated by anumber of women, especially in the 1950s, as well as significant minorities



of poor families, shittai workers, and “nominally self-employed” individu-als, such as peddlers and rag pickers.

As with precarious jobs, these housing and lodging arrangements didcontribute to the decline in homelessness, but, at the same time, they werethe places from which homelessness occurred when it did. Low-income ten-ants lost their housing when they were unable to pay the rents; live-inworkers and day laborers lost their shelter instantly when they lost theirwork. Moreover, once homeless, even the public housing program was hardto reach not simply because the program was residual in nature but alsobecause, to apply to, it required kin to live with, a residential record, aguarantor, and an income high enough to pay the rents—requirements thathomeless people could not meet easily (Iwata 1995; Honma 1988).

Unfortunately, the government’s welfare policy, like its housing coun-terpart, was directed to industrial development, and, although efforts weremade toward a welfare state, these efforts took place insofar as they wereperceived as serving this purpose and another, which was to maintain pub-lic order. Behind the emergence of the national health and pension insur-ance programs and improved public assistance benefits were labormovements and welfare rights struggles that sought more and better socialsecurity (Shibata 1998). Partly for this reason, however, these programshad a number of limits. Although the health insurance program was univer-sal, it actually left out people who were too poor to pay the fee, and, until1968, the plan required the insured to pay as much as a half of the medicalexpenses (ibid.: 194). The universal pension scheme failed to cover peoplewho were not poor enough to qualify for waiver. Besides, one had to be 65years of age to claim benefits. By making health and pension insurancenational requirements, however, the government collected vast amounts ofmoney from ordinary people and succeeded in channeling the funds forindustrial growth (Shibata 1998).

What needs to be examined under the circumstances is the extent towhich the livelihood protection program functioned as a safety net. Theprogram did sometimes prevent people from falling into the condition ofhomelessness. For instance, its medical assistance saved people who werenot covered by the national health insurance program. Among those whowere not covered by the national health insurance program and thenational pension program were day laborers, but they often received liveli-hood protection benefits, especially in the 1960s. In fact, their chances ofbeing on the dole were much higher than the national average.9 There werea health insurance program and an unemployment insurance programdesigned for day laborers, but these programs were limited to shittai work-ers. Moreover, even workers participating in the relief work program often



could not survive without supplementing meager income with public assis-tance because they had a dependent family—a qualification for shittai work(Akiyama, Mori, and Yamashita 1960b). The livelihood protection pro-gram covered these relief workers in addition to non-relief workers.

Nevertheless, the very fact that sizeable homelessness remained untilperhaps the mid-1960s proves that the livelihood protection program,despite its claim to assure a minimum standard of living for all the poor, wasin practice far from a safety net. A fundamental limit of this program wasthat it presupposed residential and occupational affiliation, and, although itdid take into consideration individuals under the condition of homelessness,it limited itself to those who needed immediate protection due to serious ill-ness or injury (Iwata 1995). Thus, the program left out a number of homelesspeople. Furthermore, the program required applicants to have exhaustedother means of survival, including use of assets and kin support. This require-ment prevented otherwise eligible people from applying for benefits andhelped reinforce the role of the family as relief provider. In addition, inyoseba, the basic principle of local governments was to give the destitute“extra legal assistance,” or emergency relief outside the Livelihood Protec-tion Law, instead of regular welfare. Therefore, it was not very easy foryoseba men to gain access to the program. Besides, they were generally muchyounger than their counterparts in the 1980s and 1990s, and when they didobtain public assistance, they meant it to be temporary and it actually was.

How then did homelessness become invisible in the latter half of the1960s? It is not easy to answer this question because no one has followedthe process closely. Yet, available literature suggests that it perhapsinvolved three processes. First, homeless people who slept on the streetsincreasingly moved to shacks to settle (Iwata 1995). Second, shantytowns,especially large and visible ones, sometimes with hundreds of shacks, weredismantled one after another, often forcefully, by local governments. At thebeginning of the 1960s, they became a target of slum clearance, along withother low-income neighborhoods (Association on Municipal Problems1961, 1966). As urban development gained momentum and as the urbanlandscape showed fewer and fewer traces of war damages, these neighbor-hoods were designated as “environmentally inferior districts,” and housingreform proceeded. In the first half of the 1960s, a total of about 23,000reform units were constructed in 231 low-income neighborhoods nation-wide (Maekawa 1966: 32), including public apartment buildings for shan-tytown dwellers. Third and finally, homeless people who refused to moveto new housing or welfare facilities scattered over the city (Iwata 1995).

In the 1970s, homelessness remained invisible as it largely became atemporary phenomenon among day laborers in yoseba. By the early 1970s



when the high growth period ended, yoseba districts had become male daylaborers’ towns. The overwhelming majority were not on the relief workprogram, which stopped soliciting applicants in 1963 (and was terminatedin 1996). Homelessness typically occurred among these yoseba men inrecessions and lean seasons. Yoseba experienced a crisis of homelessness inthe recession triggered by the first oil crisis of 1973, although homelessnessremained mostly invisible because in most cases it was temporarily shortand spatially limited to yoseba. Seasonal homelessness became a norm inyoseba especially after the oil crisis because other industries than construc-tion largely ceased to hire yoseba men. The industry’s employment ofyoseba men fluctuated according to the government’s schedule of publicworks projects because the industry heavily depended on these projects;work increased in February and March, just before a new fiscal year began,decreased between April and July, a period which includes the rainy season,and rose again thereafter until it declined in the winter holiday season,from the end of December to January. Homelessness fluctuated accordingly.

RETURN OF VISIBLE HOMELESSNESS IN THE 1990s

In the 1980s, long-term homelessness began to increase among olderyoseba men. No solid time-series data exist to demonstrate the increase,but there are some figures that indicate it. In San’ya, for example, the per-centage of homeless day laborers seeking emergency relief in the local wel-fare center began to exceed 50 percent of all relief seekers in 1986, and theaverage age of homeless relief seekers became much higher in the latter halfof the 1980s than before (Umezawa 1995: 30). The 1991 census is said tohave counted some 360 homeless men in Taito Ward where part of San’yais located (SRFK 1992: 140). In and around Kamagasaki, the number ofhomeless began to grow in the early 1980s and reached 766 on one day in1987 (K. Shima 1999: 22). Within Kamagasaki, between 1987 and 1989,long-term, as opposed to temporary, homelessness sharply increased,although it was much less prevalent than in San’ya (Umezawa 1995: 73).Further, in and around Kotobuki, a group of patrollers counted an averageof 24 homeless on one day in 1984, but the number rose to 94 by 1988(ibid.: 53).10

Yet, it was in the early 1990s when Japan witnessed a sharp rise inhomelessness in its major cities across the country for the first time sincethe end of World War II. The homeless population of recent years has dif-fered from its earlier counterparts. First, it has been less varied than thecounterparts in the early postwar years and the subsequent couple ofdecades. Whereas the latter included families, men of young age, women,



and children, homeless people in more recent years have been mostly mid-dle-aged and older single men. Second, the current homeless population hasbeen more varied than its counterpart in the 1970s and the 1980s. Whilethe latter was largely comprised by yoseba men, the former has included anumber of workers who had never held construction jobs or had contactedyoseba before they began to sleep rough.

Homeless people in recent years have shared some characteristics,however. In addition to maleness, singleness, and oldness, they have sharedrelatively poor educational backgrounds (the majority finished only com-pulsory education, or junior high school, at best) as well as precariousemployment and housing backgrounds. The majority of the homelessstarted out their work history or held their longest jobs as regular workers,most often in manufacturing but also in services and construction. Yet,many eventually became casual workers, including day laborers. A signifi-cant proportion of the homeless had regular jobs immediately before theybecame homeless. Although available surveys of the homeless rarely tell thesize of the firms to which formerly regular workers once belonged, in thelong past or more recently, it is safe to assume that they were in medium-sized or small firms rather than large firms, as their singleness and low lev-els of education combine to suggest. Smaller firms have been vulnerable toeconomic fluctuations and these firms, as well as their employees, regularor casual, have tended to run out of business more easily than large firmsand their regular employees.

Past housing conditions of the homeless were also precarious in thattheir housing generally did not form an asset or a source of income and wassensitive to employment status. Only a small proportion of the currentlyhomeless have ever owned home, and the overwhelming majority were inprivate apartments, flophouses, labor camps, or housing units provided byfirms. According to the largest and the most detailed survey available forTokyo (Toshi Seikatsu Kenkyû Kai 2000: 34, 42), when younger, nearly 30percent of the respondents lived in private rental apartments and, immedi-ately before they became homeless, 23 percent did. Similarly, in Nagoya, 23percent of the homeless surveyed in 1994 fell into the condition of home-lessness directly from this type of housing (Sasajima no Genjô wo Aki-rakani suru Kai 1995: 8). In Hiroshima where there is no yoseba district,nearly half of the homeless interviewed in 1998 began to sleep rough afterlosing private rental apartments (Hiroshima Rojô Seikatsu wo Akirakanisuru Kai 2002: 36). The rest were mostly under the other types of precari-ous housing arrangements. In addition, reflecting their work history, over-all, precariousness of homeless people’s past housing increased as theybecame older or switched jobs.



The immediate reason behind the sharp growth of homelessness liesin the shrinking capacity of the yoseba to employ and shelter day laborersand downwardly mobile single men. This in turn occurred as the construc-tion industry went through structural changes and as the stock of afford-able flophouses shrank because of renovation and upgrading. Yet, if we areto be alerted by the appearance in the homeless population of non-yosebamen, especially non-construction workers, then we would broaden our per-spective and examine what has happened to the major sectors of the econ-omy from which they came, in addition to the construction industry. Wewould also need to consider what has happened to urban housing as well associal security, especially the public assistance program. In fact, changessurrounding yoseba men are best understood within the broader contextpartly because, when young, many of them held regular jobs outside con-struction and partly because these changes did not significantly differ fromthose experienced by non-construction workers.

In what follows, I go back to the 1980s (and to the 1970s upon neces-sity) and identify changes that occurred in the industrial structure, urbanhousing, and public programs to pave the way for the surge of homeless-ness in the early 1990s. As we have seen, the decline in homelessness in the1950s and 1960s depended on the growth of precarious employment andhousing as well as public programs that were restrictive in many ways. Inthe 1970s, homelessness in no way disappeared but it was largely invisiblebecause it was temporarily short and spatially confined in and aroundyoseba. All this means that until the 1990s precarious employment andshelter, including day labor and flophouses, contained much potentialhomelessness. Yet, because of the very precariousness, they also had thepotential of generating homelessness, should significant changes occur. Thepurpose of going back to the 1980s is to see what changes took place inprecarious employment and housing as well as in limited public housingand welfare before the rapid growth of homelessness.

In the 1980s, three broad processes combined to prepare for the sharprise in homelessness in the early 1990s; they are (1) economic globalization,which promoted a shift from a manufacturing to a service economy, (2)associated urban redevelopment and gentrification, which eliminated anumber of affordable private rental apartments as well as flophouses, and(3) deregulation and privatization policies, which contributed to thegrowth of homelessness indirectly by facilitating these processes anddirectly by undermining public programs for low-income workers, includ-ing day laborers. I first examine overall changes in industry, housing, andwelfare. Then I show how parallel developments occurred in the yosebasystem. Yoseba men have always been prone to homelessness, and changes



in the yoseba system began to generate long-term homelessness amongolder yoseba men in the 1980s, several years before it happened to a farlarger number of low-income workers, including younger, able-bodiedyoseba men.

ECONOMIC GLOBALIZATION AND ITS EFFECTS

Understanding what happened to the major sectors of the economy in the1980s requires understanding of a decline in the position of primaryworkers, or male regular workers in large firms in the key manufacturingsector. The position of primary workers declined in the latter half of the1970s as their employers tried to recover a falling rate of profit. Theprofit rate in the manufacturing sector decreased in the early 1970s, from47 percent in 1970 to 34 percent in 1973 (Itoh 1990: 165) due to laborshortages and rises of prices of raw materials from developing countries,both of which occurred at the end of the 1960s, and growth of labor dis-putes, which occurred in the early 1970s. The rate of profit furtherplunged to 10 percent in 1975 through the oil crisis in 1973 (ibid.: 169).To counter the falling rate of profit, large manufacturing firms took aseries of measures, including downsizing (Seiyama 1980), introduction ofnew micro electronics (ME) automation systems into factories and offices(Y. Takahashi 1990), and active promotion of quality control (QC) circlesand zero defect (ZD) campaigns on the shop floor (Itoh 1990).

For primary workers, these efforts to raise labor productivity andprofits meant depressed wages and vulnerability to downward relocation,temporary transfer, and firing (K. Andô and Ishikawa 1980). The situationlasted as Japan faced the second oil crisis in 1979 and as large manufactur-ers took advantage of the Japanese-type labor management, allegedly fea-turing life-time employment, seniority wages, and enterprise unionism, forthe purpose of continuing with downsizing and intensification of labor(Itoh 1990). The weakening of the position of primary workers signaled thedemise of a Fordist regime, which had assured better wages as long as pro-ductivity improved (ibid.). It also had an important bearing on the eco-nomic well-being of low-income workers in smaller firms as it facilitatedeconomic globalization in the 1980s (Sassen 1991). Economic globalizationpromoted a shift from a manufacturing to a service economy and, in doingso, changed the structure of employment opportunity to the disadvantageespecially of low-income older male workers.

The shift from a manufacturing to a service economy began in the1970s. The share of service workers in the total workforce has grownsteadily since 1947 (M. Nomura 1998), exceeding 50 percent around the



mid-1970s, with more than 27 million people working in the service sector(Itoh 1990: 146). The manufacturing sector began to shrink, relative to theservice sector, in the mid-1970s. Between 1970 and 1980, while theabsolute number of workers in the sector stayed stagnant at around 13 mil-lion, their share in the total workforce decreased from about 26.2 to 23.8percent (TMG 1998: 31). In the 1980s, the trend continued and, by 1990,nearly 60 percent of the total workforce belonged to the service sector and23.5 percent, to the manufacturing sector (ibid.).

In the 1980s, the industrial shift was promoted by economic global-ization. In the decade, the shift progressed as growing numbers of largefirms, manufacturing or otherwise, turned to overseas operation. Overseasbusiness took the forms of direct foreign investment (DFI), or the forma-tion or acquirement of firms abroad, and foreign securities investment, orcross-boarder transaction of bonds and equities. Investment of both typesincreased especially in the latter half of the decade.11 The sharp growth inDFI in manufacturing undercut the domestic manufacturing sector as firmsincreasingly shifted production sites to the United States and low-wagecountries in Asia and as the overseas affiliates increasingly procured rawmaterials and parts from within these countries and exported finishedproducts back to Japan. Between 1985 and 1990, the ratio of foreign pro-duction against domestic production (measured in sales) more than dou-bled from 3.0 percent to 6.4 percent (MITI 1995: 182), and it kept rising inthe 1990s. Import of industrial products from overseas affiliates grew espe-cially from Asian countries.12 In addition, the decline in manufacturing wasaccelerated by large-scale downsizing that occurred in the old leadingindustries (e.g., steel, mining, and shipbuilding), which had been taken overby the consumer electronics and auto industries (Sassen 1991; Y. Takahashi1990).

At the same time, voluminous DFI and securities investment helpedexpand the service sector as they led to transnationalization of large firmsin both the manufacturing and service sectors. As cross-border investmentsincreased, so did the number of transnational firms in Japan. Between 1975and 1987, it rose from 37 to 121 (Machimura 1994: 72).13 These firmsconcentrated in major cities as they required centralized management ofglobal networks of factories and offices as well as access to global financialmarkets (Sassen 1991). These firms also needed advanced telecommunica-tion facilities for the said management (ibid.). In cities such as Tokyo, thesetransnational firms, as well as smaller firms in all industries, createddemand for specialized services as intermediate inputs. Thus, producerservices, or services for organizations, grew, such as banking, insurance,real estate, engineering, accounting, and legal services, generating a group



of high-income professionals. Between 1970 and 1990, the number ofemployees in producer services increased from about 52 million to 62 mil-lion across Japan (Sassen 1994: 56).

With the industrial shift, employment uncertainties among workers insmaller firms spread as increasing numbers of medium-sized and small firmsbegan to experience difficulties in continuing business. In the manufacturingsector, as large firms engaged in business overseas, they placed their subcon-tractors under competition with producers abroad and with each other. Forsubcontractors the most important advantage of producing for parent firmswas the relative stability of workload (Small and Medium Enterprise Agency1997). However, from the mid-1980s, many lost this advantage as parentfirms started to choose firms that were able to satisfy the twin requirement ofcost reduction and development of specialized technologies (ibid.). This ledto polarization of subcontracting manufacturers because not all of themcould deal with the daunting challenge successfully.14

A similar phenomenon occurred in the service sector as well.Although this sector expanded due largely to the growth of producer serv-ices, the expansion depended more on large firms than on smaller firmswhose main customers continued to be consumers (Small and MediumEnterprise Agency 1997). Among smaller firms, competition was pro-nounced between small retailers on one hand and growing conveniencestores and large supermarkets on the other. Backed by large capital, thesestores used ME technologies, offered lower prices, and/or adopted them-selves to the changing consumer preferences, which were difficult for smallretailers. Thus, in the 1980s, small retailers closed their business more oftenthan they started it (Chûshô Kigyô Jigyôdan 1992). In fact, by the end ofthe 1980s, smaller firms as a whole, or in all industries, began to close busi-ness more often than they started it for the fist time since the high growthperiod (M. Nomura 1998). By sector, the shrinkage of business was pro-nounced in manufacturing, especially among small establishments, whilethe service sector as a whole continued to see new startups more often thanclosure (ibid.).

Although these developments affected workers in smaller firms in gen-eral, from the viewpoint of homelessness, they worked to the disadvantageespecially of older male workers with low levels of education and few sell-able skills as they were put under competition with female and foreigncasual workers. The number of female workers rose by 5 million between1985 and 1995, with 3 million of them working part-time (Tokita 1997:210). Nearly 40 percent of the part-timers were in small and petty enter-prises, employing less than 30 workers (ibid.: 211). Although female casuallabor was an economic buffer like day labor among men, female part-timers



increasingly remained in the labor market as the recession lasted in the1990s (M. Nomura 1998). Also, DFI in and foreign aid to developingcountries in Asia as well as complex political processes promoted flow ofworkers from East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and later in the 1990s,from Brazil and Peru (Machimura 1994; Morita 1994). The flow of foreignworkers, albeit very slow compared to other developed countries, still rosesharply in the latter half of the 1980s.15 Often under the title of “trainee”or “student,” many of these foreign workers filled casual jobs in manufac-turing and services (Kajita 1994).

Japan’s postwar economic expansion depended heavily on precariousenterprises and workers. Compared to large firms and their employees,they have always been vulnerable to internal competition and economicdownturns. Yet, toward the end of the high growth period, disparitiesbetween primary workers and secondary workers, or workers in smallerfirms, were said to be narrowing because the economic condition of sec-ondary workers improved, with higher wages and more employment secu-rity (M. Nomura 1998). As we saw in this section, however, the position ofprimary workers declined in the 1970s, and it helped economic globaliza-tion to unfold in the 1980s without much opposition from primary work-ers. Economic globalization induced a structural change in the majorsectors of the economy; smaller firms shrank as well as chances amongolder male workers for maintaining and gaining jobs in the secondary labormarket due to the availability of other casual workers.

Economic globalization in the 1980s affected not only employmentopportunity among older men; it also affected the availability of low-income housing for them. Globalization urged spatial reorganization ofcities because it required office space for transnationals and producerservice firms as well as residential space for high-income earners whowork in these and other firms. Thus, urban redevelopment and gentrifi-cation proceeded in the 1980s. Gentrification is “a process by whichlow-income housing is converted to middle- and upper-middle-classhousing, often via conversion to condominiums or upscale apartmentcomplexes, or to commercial space for businesses serving a middle- andupper-middle-class clientele” (Wright and Lam 1987: 52). In this way,gentrification not only raises rents for low-income housing but alsoremoves some from the housing market altogether, thereby uprootingtenants. Urban redevelopment does not necessarily have to accompanythis process, but it has in many cities in developed countries, includingJapan. Here I take Tokyo, the geographical focus of this study, as anexample to see how these processes undermined private rental housingon which low-income workers have depended.



Tokyo emerged as a global city in the 1980s as it received more andmore transnational firms, foreign firms, and headquarters or branches ofdomestic firms. In about a decade between 1975 and 1987, the number oftransnationals in Tokyo increased from 21 to 71 (Machimura 1994: 83),and that of foreign firms, from around 550 in 1969 to nearly 3,000 in1989 (Tsukada 1991: 70). The number of producer service firms also roserapidly to support these and other entities; between 1981 and 1996, itincreased from about 55,000 to about 84,000 (TMG 2000: 10). Accord-ingly, the number of large redevelopment projects in Tokyo increasedfrom 22 in 1981–1983 to 33 in 1984–1986 and further to 42 in1987–1989 (Machimura 1994: 172–180).16 As a result, office space grewon an unprecedented scale, especially in the latter half of the 1980s; itmore than doubled between 1985 and 1990 (ibid.). In the latter half ofthe 1980s, private rental housing that targeted better-off young singlesand small families also grew rapidly. In Tokyo and its surrounding prefec-tures (Saitama, Chiba, and Kanagawa) taken together, expensive rentalhousing increased by 46 percent between 1985 and 1986, and in fouryears from 1985 and 1988, a total of 1.2 million such unites were created(Kodama 1990: 120–121). In addition, in the same period, a total ofnearly 400,000 luxurious condominiums and subdivisions (housing builtfor sale) were created (ibid.).

The growth of office space and middle- and high-income housing ledto higher rents for low-income workers. In Tokyo, between 1978 and 1988,the rent measured by the tatami mat (about 6 x 3 feet) increased 55 percentfor wooden apartments with private bathrooms and 44 percent for tene-ments with shared toilets (Tsukada 1991: 153–154). Not surprisingly,according to a Construction Ministry survey in 1988, more than 13 percentof private renters in Tokyo found the ongoing rents “too high to secure suf-ficient money to buy even the minimum necessities of life” (ibid.: 152). Theexpansion of office space and the more expensive housing units also elimi-nated some low-income rental housing from the housing market. Between1983 and 1988, 16,000 wooden rental units—prototypical housing forlow-income singles and families (Kido 1990)—disappeared in Tokyo(Tsukada 1991: 167). In the same period, the share of these units in thetotal housing stock in the city also dropped, from 23 to 19 percent, partlybecause of upgrading through renovation and partly because of conversionto office or commercial space (ibid.).17

Importantly, behind the rent hikes was a tremendous hike in landprices in the city of Tokyo. To a large extent, the hike is attributable to theactivity of firms. That is, especially in the latter half of the 1980s, firmsactively invested speculative money capital in land (Itoh 1990). In central



Tokyo, firms and other legal entities increased their land ownership morerapidly in the 1980s than in the 1970s (Tsukada 1991) and, by 1988, theyowned more than 70 percent of all land in the central business districts ofChiyoda and Chuo Wards (ibid.: 137). This invited an astonishing rise inland prices. Between 1985 and 1986, the average price of commercial landrose about 20 percent while that of residential land rose by 6.4 percent(ibid.: 114–115). In 1987, the former rose 75 percent and the latter, 50.5percent (ibid.). Here we see not only that land prices in Tokyo skyrocketedbut also how increases in the price of commercial land raised that of resi-dential land.

Since the 1950s, the main type of housing for low-income workers incities has been private rental housing. In particular, wooden tenements haveprovided housing for a number of low-income singles and families. In the1980s, however, more and more private rental units were for better-offworkers and families. Moreover, redevelopment and gentrification, coupledwith highly inflated land prices, undermined the capacity of the low-incomehousing market to meet the housing needs of low-income workers. Rede-velopment proceeded in the 1970s as well, but it concentrated in the centralbusiness districts of Chiyoda, Chuo, and Minato Wards as well as in Shin-juku Ward, a newly emerging sub-center of Tokyo. In the 1980s, however,redevelopment spread to their surrounding areas and beyond, to inner cityareas, covering Taito, Sumida, Arakawa, Itabashi, Shinagawa, and OtaWards. With the expansion of redevelopment, the stock of private low-income housing shrank. And it is not hard to imagine that, under the cir-cumstances, live-in arrangements became increasingly difficult for pettyshop owners, although it was never an ideal way to secure housing for sin-gle employees.

THE ROLE OF THE GOVERNMENT

The government helped increase homelessness in two ways: first, by facili-tating the processes of industrial shift, redevelopment, and gentrification,and second, by cutting public programs designed for low-income people.The ways in which the government contributed to the sharp rise in home-lessness in the early 1990s can be summarized by deregulation and privati-zation measures that it took in the 1980s. Behind this move were a largedebt and trade frictions. Government debt, which accounted for nearly 40percent of GNP in 1980, resulted from expansive fiscal policy adopted inthe 1970s (Itoh 1990: 171). To lessen the debt, in the early 1980s, theNakasone administration, in line with Thatcherism and Reaganomics, pur-sued neoconservative austerity policy. Notably, it suppressed spending in



social security, education, and aid to smaller firms while placing prioritieson defense and foreign aid (Shibata 1998; Y. Shima 1982). At the sametime, the government launched a large-scale administrative reform and pri-vatized government-run firms, including the Japan National Railways andthe Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Public Corporation.

Later in the 1980s, the government tried to mitigate trade frictionswith the United States and other developed countries. Backed by corporaterestructuring and the spread of ME automation systems, Japan’s trade sur-plus had amounted to 46 billion dollars by 1985 (Ito 1990: 201). Toincrease domestic demand and reduce trade surplus, the government appre-ciated the yen, thereby increasing the purchasing power of the currency,and took a series of measures to liberalize financial markets (Miyazaki1993). The government also kept lowering interest rates and easing moneysupply (ibid.). Trade surplus and financial deregulation coupled with thestronger yen and the vast amounts of capital made available through theeasy money policy drove large firms to DFI and securities investment. Aswe have seen, rapid growth in DFI and securities investment was a mainpromoter of the shift from a manufacturing to a service economy in the1980s.

Another measure to raise domestic demand was urban redevelop-ment. To facilitate this process, the government lifted redevelopmentrestrictions (Machimura 1994), made masses of its land available for pri-vate use, and prioritized high- and middle-income housing over low-incomehousing (Kodama 1990). At the beginning of the 1980s, the governmentrevised the Urban Redevelopment Act as urged by Keidanren, a majoremployers’ organization, and by large construction firms. The revisioneased private firms’ participation in redevelopment. Later, the governmenttreated redevelopment as a major national policy and, against the previousnational development plans that had sought to balance urban and ruralpopulations and functions, emphasized the increasing importance of“world cities” such as Tokyo (Machimura 1994). In doing so, the govern-ment lifted construction and urban planning regulations and sold vast gov-ernment-owned land to private interests.

To encourage better-off households to build or purchase expensivehousing, it introduced new tax benefits (Tomura 1990) and generously sup-plied grants-in-aid to the Housing Loan Corporation. The Japanese govern-ment has seldom committed itself to housing provision. In the postwaryears, it was ordinary people who provided most housing. Throughout the1970s and 1980s, the government housing spending stayed less than 2 per-cent of the budget (general account) (Kodama 1990: 133–134). Yet, in the1970s, public housing topped the list of housing expenditures, accounting



for more than half of the total spending of the kind. In 1987, however, theHousing Loan Corporation received a better share from the governmentthan the public housing program (ibid.). Further, in 1986, the governmentabolished the Rent Control Order, which had protected low-income work-ers’ housing security by regulating private rents (Kobayashi and Ômoto1996).

Importantly, the government’s promotion of urban redevelopmentprompted the TMG to play an active role in the process. As mentioned ear-lier, in the 1980s, close to 100 large redevelopment projects were plannedin Tokyo. While the majority of these projects belonged to real estate com-panies, the TMG became a major developer when the Nakasone adminis-tration began to encourage Tokyo’s spatial restructuring (Machimura 1994;O’Leary and Machimura 1995). Governor Suzuki and TMG officialsresponded to this policy change by turning what was originally a small,local project called Teleport into a national project called the WaterfrontDevelopment Project at Tokyo Bay. This project was the world’s mostexpensive redevelopment project at that time, and prioritized large firms (inconstruction and services) and high-income earners (for whom high-riseresidential complexes were built) (Hiramoto 2000). Consistent with thenational housing policy change, the TMG also cut its provision of publichousing; while it constructed 16,000 units in a peak year of 1971, in the1980s, it did less than 6,000 units annually (Kodama 1990: 134).

Finally, the government privatization efforts in no way bypassed thelivelihood protection program. To reduce public assistance, in 1981, theWelfare Ministry issued notification No. 123, which guided welfare officesacross the country toward strict means and income tests against publicassistance applicants (Shôya 1988). The government then located this pol-icy within a broader welfare restructuring scheme, thereby breaking withthe earlier pledge to achieve a welfare state. Accordingly, between 1980 and1990, the number of livelihood protection recipients decreased about 30percent from 1.43 to 1.02 million (Itô 2000: 155). By 1993, it furtherdropped to 0.88 million (ibid.).

As noted earlier, from their inception, the public housing and liveli-hood protection programs were of residual nature. As a principle, low-income people were not supposed to count on the government for housingand welfare, and there were numerous restrictions imposed on these pro-grams. In the 1980s, for low-income older single men, not only the quanti-tative contraction of these programs but also their exclusionary practicesincreased their vulnerability to homelessness. In 1980, the public housingprogram extended eligibility to singles, but this extension applied only tothe elderly and middle-aged women (K. Nomura 1990). To a large extent,



older single men have also been excluded from the livelihood protectionprogram as it has been applied mostly to families with a disabledmember(s), the elderly, and to a lesser extent, female-headed families(Soeda 1988). Single men have often been required to be too sick to workor at least 60 years old to be considered, and therefore, able-bodied oldersingle men have had difficulty in establishing their case even when they arelegally eligible (Bitô, Kinoshita, and Nakagawa 2000).

By making a small government even smaller in ways that disadvan-taged low-income older single men, the government played a major role inpaving the way for rapid growth of homelessness. In 1989, the Bank ofJapan tightened money supply, putting an end to the asset-inflated “bubbleeconomy” (T. Kotani 1999). In 1992, Japan’s growth rate dropped to lessthan one percent, signaling the beginning of a recession (Shinozuka 1999).The recession lasted long and turned out to be the worst in postwar Japanbecause recovery required both elevation of demand and resolution ofcredit crunch, a product of financial deregulation (Miyazaki 1993).Between 1991 and 1996, more than 83,000 firms went bankrupt (Smalland Medium Enterprise Agency 1997: Appendix 38). Most, or 99 percent,of these firms were smaller firms. The rate of unemployment rose steadilyfrom 2.1 percent in 1992 to 5 percent in 2001 (Health, Labor and WelfareMinistry 2002: Appendix 19). Vulnerable to economic downturns and sub-ject to high rents under the condition of shrinking low-income housing andwelfare, a number of male workers in smaller firms were forced into thestreets in the 1990s as they lost jobs as a result of firing or bankruptcy.

THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY AND YOSEBA

The construction industry grew sharply during the high growth period and,by 1970, it employed 7.5 percent of the total workforce in Japan (TMG1998: 31). The industry grew fast in the period because large firms in theheavy and chemical industries actively invested in plants and equipmentand the government launched a number of public works projects to buildinfrastructure for these industries (Katô 1991). Demand for housing alsoincreased in this period. As in the major sectors of the economy, however,the expansion depended on small firms and, as in manufacturing, subcon-tracting systems under which large firms placed them. By 1975, smallerfirms (employing less than 300 workers) accounted for 99.9 percent of allfirms in construction (Kikuoka 1980: 20), and by 1977, the five largestfirms had an average of 775 firms beneath them (Hippô 1992: 30). To savelabor costs, these and other large firms used high proportions of workers attheir subcontractors rather than at their own. These subcontractors in turn



used workers at their subcontractors (or sub-subcontractors for the princi-pal contractors). Principal and subcontractors also used casual workersrecruited from elsewhere. The construction industry was thus built on ahierarchical system of labor supply.

Following the high growth period, the government continued withpublic works projects to boost the economy at the time of economic down-turn (Nakayama 1997).18 Backed by large amounts of public investment,the construction industry increased its share of workforce, to 8.9 percent in1975 and 9.6 percent in 1980 (TMG 1998: 31). This did not mean, how-ever, that smaller firms in the industry enjoyed more stability than theircounterparts in other industries. On the contrary, they were more likely togo bankrupt than their counterparts in other industries because publicworks projects disproportionately concentrated on a small number of largefirms (Shiina 1997). For small firms in subcontracting systems, especiallysmallest ones at their bottom, the concentration of public works on largefirms meant that they held excess labor (Hippô 1992). For firms outsidesubcontracting systems, it meant being excluded from public works proj-ects. Either way, small firms were highly vulnerable to bankruptcy.

The characteristics of the construction industry have not fundamen-tally changed since the high growth period. Thus, the multi-tiered laborsupply system continues to prevail, and construction workers continue toexperience bankruptcy more often than workers in most other industries(Construction Ministry 2000). Construction workers also work muchlonger hours than the average worker for below-average wages (ibid.).Casualties also abound as they did in the past; the industry is responsiblefor 30 percent of all industrial deaths and injuries (ibid.: 472). As a group,yoseba men, among other workers in the industry, have been in the mostdisadvantaged position with respect to employment, housing, and welfare.Since the 1970s, they have not only been among the first to lose jobs uponrecession but also been subject to seasonal unemployment. Because flop-houses remain their main shelter and because welfare for them also remainsinferior, yoseba men continue to be more prone to homelessness than otherworkers in the construction industry or in any other industry.19

In the 1980s, however, structural changes took place to generate long-term homelessness among many older yoseba men. These changes are thereorganization of subcontracting systems, the appearance of a gentrifica-tion-like phenomenon in yoseba districts, and welfare restructuring. Theycorrespond to the broader changes that I have discussed in the previous twosections. After the profit rate fell in the 1970s (Hippô 1992), the construc-tion industry further faced stagnant public investment due to the Nakasoneadministration’s austerity policy. To raise profits, large firms turned to



overseas operation and doubled foreign contracting (measured in price)between 1980 and 1983 (Construction Ministry 1998: 517). Large firms,like their manufacturing counterparts, also launched downsizing, MEautomation (from the 1980s), and total quality control (TQC) movements(from the latter half of the 1970s) (Hippô 1992; Kimura 1996), whilerequiring subcontractors to cut labor costs, improve product quality, andincrease work efficiency.

In the latter half of the 1980s, the construction industry saw the endof what they called a “winter era” of the industry and enjoyed a boom. Theindustry facilitated and was benefited by economic globalization as largefirms increased overseas contracting, which amounted to an all-time highof 1,600 billion yen by 1991 (Construction Ministry 1998: 517). In doingso, they diversified business by stepping into unconventional fields such asconstruction of hotels and offices and development of resort areas, espe-cially in North America, Europe, and the Pacific region (Construction Min-istry 1998). Large firms also applied the strategy of business diversificationto the domestic market in line with government deregulation and privatiza-tion; they entered such fields as finance, real estate, housing, high technol-ogy, and urban redevelopment. Not surprisingly, many of theredevelopment projects in Tokyo in the latter half of the 1980s were borneby large construction firms (Machimura 1994). Furthermore, large firmsactively undertook the more traditional public works projects and,throughout the 1980s, maintained a far larger share of public works con-tracting than small firms and independent employers (Shiina 1997).

For small independent firms, these developments meant growing diffi-culties in securing business opportunities. With large firms dominating theindustry, some entered a subcontracting system to survive and others closedor changed business (K. Kotani 1997). For subcontractors of large firms, therequirements of cost reduction and improvement in quality and work effi-ciency meant increased competition among themselves. While the require-ments benefited some subcontractors, which grew out of mere laborsuppliers, others, incapable of meeting them, were sometimes removed fromthe subcontracting system altogether (Kimura 1996). Further, for the success-ful subcontractors, the increasing departure of their principal contractorsfrom the conventional domestic construction business meant taking overtheir responsibilities of execution management and labor management. Bear-ing the primary contractors’ role, however, prompted subcontractors totransfer the burden of labor supply and management to sub-subcontractorsand other small firms beneath them (Kimura 1996, 1997).

Improved labor supply and management at smaller firms in subcontract-ing systems, however, entailed the declining significance of yoseba districts as



pools of day labor. In the 1980s, labor suppliers enjoyed the growing avail-ability of younger, healthier, and more docile day laborers. With casualiza-tion of labor in progress in the decade, full-time employment opportunitiesfor youths declined, and there emerged a segment of the young labor forcein long-term underemployment. In addition, as I mentioned earlier, thenumber of foreign workers increased in this decade. According to a 1989estimate, 47 percent of male undocumented immigrants worked in con-struction (Stalker 1994: 254). For the convenience of larger firms, laborsuppliers developed networks of labor camps to pool these younger daylaborers (Nakamura 1999), which enabled them to place laborers underdirect supervision and send them to construction sites upon necessity. Torecruit younger laborers, labor suppliers used such media as newspapers(ibid.) and magazines. In the latter half of the 1980s, labor camps becamelarger than before (Nakane 2002), reflecting the government’s deregulationof labor camps in the mid-1980s.

The growth of labor camps affected day laborers in yoseba districtsby promoting polarization. Over the years, aging had gradually progressedin these districts partly because long-term yoseba men became older andpartly because new comers no longer included young men full of energy butwere limited to older men from other industries. Yet, many were capable ofproviding manual labor and a minority, further endowed with some skills.In San’ya, labor recruiters began picking only some of these yoseba menwhose faces were familiar to them, and other yoseba men increasinglymoved to labor camps or began commuting directly to construction siteswithout relying on local labor recruiters and labor exchanges (Nakamura1998; Yamaguchi 2001). Left behind were unskilled yoseba men who weresuffering health problems and/or too old to endure hard and dangerousphysical labor. Some of them fell into long-term homelessness. The con-struction boom brought much employment to San’ya in the latter half ofthe 1980s, but, apparently, it did not benefit all yoseba men.

Yoseba in Takadano Baba in North Shinjuku also declined in the1980s. While it thrived like San’ya during the high growth period (Nee1974), by the mid-1980s, it seems that day laborers in Baba found itincreasingly difficult to secure work. In the first half of the 1980s, many ofthem were observed relying on labor recruiters at JR Shinjuku station to getinto labor camps (Yamaoka 1993). In Kotobuki, demand for day labordecreased in the latter half of the 1980s (Aoki 1997), although the flop-house population did not decline partly because the Yokohama City Gov-ernment rather generously allowed yoseba men on welfare to stay in flopsand partly because there were a number of Korean immigrants who cameto the district in the latter half of the 1980s to assume day laboring jobs



(Gill 2001). In Kamagasaki, the effect of labor camps and changes in therecruitment methods did not manifest as early as in San’ya (K. Shima1999), probably because there were fluctuating but high levels of demandfor yoseba men in the area, at least compared to other yoseba districts(Nakane 1998). Yet, even during the boom, the average number of daysthey worked was only 16–17 per month (Ushikusa 1988: 168), and therewere older men in long-term homelessness in and around the area (Honma1989).

In the 1980s, large yoseba districts also went through a gentrification-like process. In San’ya, flophouse owners began in the 1970s to renovateoutdated wooden structures into reinforced concrete buildings, often inbusiness-hotel style (Nishizawa 1997). In the 1980s, within the context ofthe bubble economy and the construction boom, they accelerated such ren-ovation and increased the number of flophouses available in order toattract better-off day laborers and increasingly, customers from outside thedistrict (Umezawa 1995). During the 1980s, about 90 out of some 200flophouses were renovated (Asahi, June 2, 1990), and, in a 1988–1990period, several new ones opened up (Umezawa 1995: 29). The renovation,often offering single rooms with an air conditioner and a color televisionset, led to much higher room rates than before (Yamaguchi 2001). Forolder yoseba men with little work opportunity, flophouses ceased to betheir shelter because of higher charges. In addition, in 1991, six untouchedflophouses closed permanently and about 200 day laborers lost their shelterinstantly (Umezawa 1995: 31).

Around 1960, there were in Tokyo more than 600 flophouses (Iso-mura 1962: 145). Among them were some diffuse clusters of flophouses inShinjuku. However, many of these flops seem to have been renovated in asimilar way or turned to other uses. Research (Kitagawa 1997) has foundthat one such cluster, which consisted of some 70 flophouses in 1958, hadonly 16 by the mid-1990s. About one-half of the 16 flops were converted inbusiness-hotel style in the 1980s. The expensive flophouses are currentlyused by business bachelors and salesmen on business trip. For the entireTokyo, by 1991, the number of flophouses was reduced to about 300(Ôsaki 2004: 49).

In Kamagasaki, renovation of flophouses in business-hotel style pro-gressed in the latter half of the 1960s, but it was particularly pronounced inthe latter half of the 1980s, with two out of every five renovated in theperiod (Bandô 2004: 11). The number of flops increased as well, fromabout 185 in 1986 to 210 in 1989, although it declined thereafter (ibid.).Needless to say, room charges rose with renovation (Ushikusa 1993). Koto-buki differed from San’ya and Kamagasaki in that the number of flops



stayed the same in the latter half of the 1980s at about 90 (Gill 2001: 64)and that most of the structures were already concrete buildings when theywere built in the 1950s (Stevens 1997: 176). Data on the size of flophouserooms available in 1986 and in 1990 suggest that some renovation tookplace between the years because they became slightly larger (Umezawa1995: 53). Umezawa also suggests that buildings became higher by 1990.However, these changes were much less pronounced than in San’ya andKamagasaki. The reason would lie in the smallness of demand for daylabor in the district and the availability of traditional lodgers, now on wel-fare, and of new ones, now from abroad.

Finally, yoseba districts in no way escaped the national trendtoward (or back to) welfare society. In yoseba, the Nakasone administra-tion’s welfare restructuring led to restricted provision of public assis-tance and/or unemployment insurance benefits. The unemploymentinsurance program to which I am referring here differs from the one forshittai workers that I mentioned elsewhere; it is for yoseba men who areregistered in public labor exchanges. In this program, yoseba men collectstamps from employers and receive cash benefits for a limited number ofdays if they collected at least 20 plus several stamps, one for each dayworked, in the previous two months. The program is known to be prob-lematic; it excludes unregistered yoseba men, and the registered oftencannot get stamps from small firms and also find it hardest to obtainbenefits when they need them most—in periods of recession—becausethere are not enough jobs around. Yet, the program prevented at leastsome homelessness. Welfare restructuring reached this program in 1988as the government began to require a residential card to apply to the pro-gram whereas it used to require only proof of temporary stay in a flop-house (K. Shima 1999).

In the 1980s, San’ya suffered from cuts in both the public assistanceand unemployment insurance programs. Earlier in the decade, the welfareoffices in Taito and Arakawa Wards, which cover the district, tightenedtheir provision of public assistance benefits for homeless day laborers. As aresult, in these two wards, the average monthly number of homeless recipi-ents of public assistance steadily declined in the 1980s—from about 3,000in 1983 to 2,500 in 1992 (Furusato no Kai 1997: Appendix 13–2). Later,the new requirement in the unemployment insurance program led to asharp drop in the number of program users. The proportion of programparticipants in the flophouse population grew until 1988 when it was 81percent, but it declined to 63 percent by 1992 (Yamaguchi 2001: 40).Today, only 2,500 out of some several thousand day laborers in San’ya aresaid to be enrolled in the program (Nakamura 1999).



In Kamagasaki where public assistance was very unpopular because itmeant institutionalization,20 the impact of welfare restructuring was morereadily felt in a sharp drop in the number of yoseba men who wereaccepted into the winter shelter. It was nearly 2,000 in 1981 but decreasedto less than 1,400 in 1982 and further to less than 900 in 1983 (Koyanagi1993: 108). In the district, a substantial cut also occurred in the unemploy-ment insurance program even before the government imposed the new resi-dential requirement; between 1986 and 1988, the number of yoseba menon the program sharply dropped from 24,000 to 17,000 (K. Shima 1999:75) because, in 1987 and 1988, the program was tightened to discouragethe use of black-market stamps to claim benefits. With the new require-ment, the number further dropped to 15,000 by 1997 (ibid.). In Kotobuki,livelihood protection benefits were easier to obtain than in other yosebadistricts because staying in a flophouse was recognized as having “residen-tial affiliation,” yet the number of welfare recipients remained stagnant atslightly more than 2,200 between 1986 and 1992 (Aoki 1997: 39). Also,after it reached a peak in 1989, the annual number of yoseba men whowere enrolled in the unemployment insurance program decreased 43.5 per-cent to 6,238 by 1993 (ibid.: 25).

Thus, in yoseba districts, day laborers’ proneness to homelessnesscombined with reorganization of the construction industry, a gentrifica-tion-like process in the districts, and welfare restructuring to raise long-term homelessness among older yoseba men in as early as the 1980s. Whena recession hit the economy in the early 1990s, many other yoseba men,younger or older, as well as workers pooled in labor camps became home-less, the latter because the degree of their employment and housing insecu-rity was not particularly different from that among yoseba men (Tamakiand Yamaguchi 2000). The homeless population expanded rapidly as otherlow-income workers in construction and other industries were thrown outinto the streets in the midst of the record recession.

SUMMARY

Twice in postwar history, homelessness rose across Japan to last for a consid-erable period of time. After World War II, it afflicted a range of lower-stratumpeople, including families, women and children. Following the worst recessionin the postwar period, it concentrated on older single men. Although thedemographic characteristics of the homeless populations differ, the fundamen-tal preconditions for homelessness always lied in government policies priori-tizing industry and the wealthy and large firms’ heavy reliance on precariousforms of employment. Most of the time, the availability of precarious jobs



and housing helped contain much homelessness, but only in exchange foran extremely poor safety net and meager public housing. In the 1980s, sig-nificant changes occurred to generate much homelessness. They are theindustrial shift from manufacturing to services, government policy shiftstoward deregulation and privatization, and urban redevelopment—all asso-ciated with economic globalization. By generating wide-spread homeless-ness, these changes revealed the shaky ground on which the Japaneseeconomy had developed.



Chapter Three

Theoretical Framework andHypotheses

This chapter elaborates the theoretical framework and empirical founda-tion of the present study and, in doing so, delineates key movement con-cepts that it uses to analyze the homeless movement in Tokyo. I firstexamine the resource mobilization (RM) and political process perspectivesthat constitute the main current of social movement research in the UnitedStates. I pay special attention to the ways in which these perspectives havetypically dealt with the questions of movement emergence, development,and outcomes—the major concerns of the study. The purpose is to showhow the study critically adopts some of the notions of these perspectives,but this exercise will also help highlight the significance of the relationalperspective on which my analysis draws. I then examine most systematicstudies of homeless movements in the United States in order to indicatesome of the complexities of mixed movements in which the aggrieved andtheir external collaborators participate. The examination of these studies isfollowed by presentation of the relational perspective as it pertains to thepresent study and specification of the notions of collective and selectivebenefits. At the end of the chapter, I summarize my hypotheses for themovement in Tokyo, which may apply to other mixed movements.

THE RM PERSPECTIVE

The RM perspective characteristically approaches the question of move-ment emergence by highlighting formal social movement organizations(SMOs). According to the representative proponents of the model(McCarthy and Zald 1973, 1977), movements form as economic affluence,as typified by the United States in the 1960s, creates extra time and money

53


for movement activity. Affluence makes available institutional funding(from churches, foundations, government, etc.) and discretionary time,especially among university students and professionals (e.g., lawyers, pro-fessors, and corporate managers). The availability of resources, such asmoney and professional expertise, promotes the formation of formal,increasingly professional SMOs. These SMOs are particularly beneficial forthe poor and powerless since the latter have few resources of their own. Onbehalf of the aggrieved, movement entrepreneurs craft attractive issues andmobilize elite resources by using technologies such as mass mailing andtelephone. In contemporary society, the perspective argues, formal, repre-sentative SMOs are more prevalent and effective than mass movements.

SMOs are, however, not free to choose whatever goals and tacticsthey prefer. According to the RM model, in order to maintain resourceflows, SMOs must compete with other SMOs within the same movementthat also seek external resources for survival (Zald and Garner 1966). Towin competition and assure resource flows, SMOs adapt their goals andtactics to the changing “sentiments” of the support base and the broadersociety. In the process, an SMO’s goals and tactics may become moderate,neutral, or radical. If SMOs win competition and survive, they enhance theprospect of success. If they fail, then they decline if not totally disappear.Thus, given a societal level of affluence, the trajectory and outcomes of anSMO depend on how well it adjusts its goals and tactics to the interests ofaffluent external resource providers, including government.

The RM perspective has contributed to social movement research inmany ways. For one thing, it has been an important corrective to the earliernotion that a social movement was a sum of individual, irrational reactionsto external strains. Before the RM model, movement researchers (of collec-tive behavior, mass society, relative deprivation, etc.) tended to reduce thecauses of movements to the atomized individual under pluralist assump-tions (e.g., changes in the individual psychological state) (Jenkins 1983;McAdam 1982; McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald 1988; M. Useem 1975).The RM model rejected this idea and showed how movements wererational responses to the environment from which to mobilize resources(Jenkins 1983; Tarrow 1988). For another, the RM model, as it offersmeso- or organizational-level analyses of movement emergence and devel-opment, it has also been an important corrective to the tendency amongmovement researchers to pay exclusive attention to movement emergenceand its macro- and micro-structural factors—a tendency that should beovercome given the fact that it is at the intermediate level that actualrecruitment, collective action, and strategic decision making take place(McAdam, McCarthy and Zald 1988).



Despite these and other contributions, there are a couple of weak-nesses in the model that have to be noted for present purposes. One is itsassumption that formal, representative SMOs are more prevalent and effi-cient than mass movements in affluent society. As a number of critics havealready argued, mass movements have not lost significance at all and thatthey have often been more powerful than proxy movements. During the1960s and the early 1970s, there was in fact “a virtual explosion of uncon-ventional mass political participation” (Jenkins 1983: 534, emphasisadded). Among the main movements in the period were mass movementsamong lower-stratum people such as the civil rights movement (Jenkins andEckert 1986; McAdam 1982; Morris 1981) and the welfare rights move-ment (Piven and Cloward 1979; West 1981). These movements were quiteeffective in achieving gains as long as they were not co-opted by politicalelites (Piven and Cloward 1979).

Recent lower-stratum movements, including homeless movements,continue to be mass-based. In the United States, for the past two decades,such phenomena as rent strikes in poor urban neighborhood, struggles ofwelfare recipients against workfare, and squatting among homeless andother people have been widespread (Abu-Lughod et al. 1994; Delgado1986; Hirsch 1993; Imig 1996; Wagner and Cohen 1991; Wallis 1991; T.Wright 1995, 1997). In these and other struggles, although lower-stratumpeople have often worked closely with external groups, in many instances,these external allies have been entities outside the polity, such as localunions, radical artists’ groups, empowerment-oriented churches, andactivists’ organizations such as ACORN (Cress 1993; Cress and Snow1996; Delgado 1986; Demirel 1999; Hirsch 1993; Wagner and Cohen1991; T. Wright 1995, 1997). These groups have struggled with lower-stra-tum people to redress grievances directly related to the aggrieved andachieved substantial gains at least on the local level.

The other weakness of the RM perspective is its relative neglect of therole that the state plays in social movements.1 As Gamson (1994) and Tar-row (1988) have pointed out, the RM model has tended to highlight theinteraction among SMOs rather than the interaction between SMOs andtheir targets, especially the state. When RM analysts wrote about SMOgrowth and decline (Zald and Garner 1966), they did not link SMOs’dynamics to their targets in any substantive way. Instead of targets activelyinteracting with SMOs, SMOs split, merge, disappear, or radicalize as theycompete among themselves over external resources. The model projects animage that targets of action reside in the support base (for resources), thesame movement (for competition), or the same organization (for power)(Zald and Berger 1978). As political process analysts have demonstrated,

Theoretical Framework and Hypotheses 55


however, the state has constituted a main target for a number of move-ments. The civil rights and welfare rights movements targeted the state(McAdam 1982; Piven and Cloward 1979). Recent homeless movementshave also targeted public entities, from the local to the national govern-ment, in the United States or in Japan.

The relative neglect of the state in the RM perspective stems from theway in which it conceptualizes social movements. As some critics (e.g., Lo1992; McAdam 1982) have mentioned, RM analysts discuss movements of“polity members” rather than those of “challengers.” Polity members haveeasy access to the political establishment, and the issues they raise routinelyenter its decision-making process (Tilly 1978). By contrast, challengers areby definition excluded from the political establishment and, to make theirgrievances heard and ameliorated, they use non-institutional repertoires ofaction rather than such technologies as mass mailing and telephone. AsMcAdam (1982: 26) put it, challengers derive power from “their implicitchallenge to the established structure of polity membership and their will-ingness to bypass institutionalized political channels,” as well as theiractual transgression of these political channels.

The member-challenger distinction leads us to reconceptualize theemergence, development, and outcomes of movements as posited by thetypical RM analyst. For recent mobilizations among homeless and otherlower-stratum people, I suggest that, instead of entrepreneurs amassingelite resources, the aggrieved and their external collaborators form move-ments by putting together their own resources. These resources are, more-over, quite different from the kinds of resources formal representativeSMOs seek to mobilize, such as donations, membership dues, and profes-sional expertise. As Hirsch (1993) and Lo (1992) have found in their stud-ies of urban and suburban community struggles, economicallydisadvantaged and politically excluded protestors attempt to mobilize notliquid resources but interpersonal bonds, personal commitments, and beliefin a cause. Further, emotions rather than sober calculation can play a signif-icant role in movement dynamics (Goodwin, Jasper, and Polletta 2001;Rule 1989).

On the trajectories and outcomes of movements, I argue that these areshaped first and foremost by interactions between movement groups andtheir targets within the political establishment rather than by competitiveinteractions among SMOs in the same movement. Movement groupschoose goals and tactics not to satisfy the sentiments of elite resourceproviders and diffuse conscience constituents but in ways that woulddirectly protect or advance interests of the aggrieved. Outcomes are notabout organizational changes as the RM model seems to suggest; instead,



they are about concrete gains that challengers may or may not be able tobring to the constituency.

To summarize, the RM perspective provides a rational model ofmovements at the crucial meso level of analysis. Its emphasis on eliteresources and formal SMOs dissociated from the mass base, however,makes the model less amenable to the analysis of less structured, mass-based movement groups. The model leaves unanswered the question ofhow the aggrieved and their external supporters come together to formmovements, shift goals and tactics as they interact with public agencies,and generate gains. Yet, if reconceptualized, the notion of resources can beusefully applied to contemporary challengers. Specifically, crucial resourcesfor lower-stratum challengers are belief in a cause, interpersonal ties, andother intangible resources as they are embodied in the challengers. Further,as Lo (1992) has suggested, SMO activities as described by the typical RManalyst would fit a later phase of a challengers’ movement, if not its entireduration of life.

THE POLITICAL PROCESS PERSPECTIVE

In contrast to the RM perspective, the political process model deals withmass movements outside the polity. Rather than SMOs, political processanalysts have investigated large protest waves (e.g., Lodhi and Tilly 1973;Tilly 1972; Tarrow 1989) in addition to specific movements such as farmworkers’ movements (Jenkins and Perrow 1977) and the civil rights move-ment (McAdam 1982). They emphasize macro political variables to explainhow mass movements emerge and develop and with what outcomes. Acommon understanding among political process analysts is that, althoughchallengers are excluded from the polity, they can mount successful move-ments when the political regime loses stability as a result of large-scaleprocesses, such as industrialization, economic depression, and major politi-cal realignments. These processes constitute “political opportunities” forchallenging collectivities.

According to McAdam (1982), who formalized the political processmodel in his study of the civil rights movement, there are external andinternal conditions which lead to movement emergence. The external factoris the appearance of political opportunities. In the case of the civil rightsmovement, opportunities emerged such as the expansion of the black voteand its shift to the Democratic Party. Internally, since opportunities must berecognized and acted upon, the aggrieved must have mobilizing structures(e.g., unions, churches, and informal groups) which enable collective attri-bution of opportunities. These mobilizing structures facilitate movement



emergence also because they can readily offer leaders and other participantsin movements on the basis of the existing networks and ties. For movementsustenance, however, these structures must be turned to formal SMOs sothat challengers can engage in strategic planning and action. Movementsdecline with the closure of opportunities, contraction of SMOs, and cogni-tive deterioration.

In the political process model, goals are not manufactured by extrin-sic entrepreneurs mobilizing elite resources but “defined by conflicts ofinterest built into institutionalized power relations” (Jenkins 1983: 528).Goals and tactics play an important role in movement maintenance andoutcomes. Challengers use them to meet the “twin challenge” of sustainingrecruitment while controlling the response of their targets (McAdam 1982).The best mix of goals and tactics is that of moderate goals and disruptivetactics. The logic is that if challengers pursue radical goals like societaltransformation with disruptive tactics, it will invite repression. If they com-bine reform goals with institutional tactics, then neglect will follow. Sincereform goals create opportunities for potential allies in the polity, if com-bined with disruptive tactics, they will see fruitful results.

Studies by political process analysts have successfully demonstrated howthe “movement’s mass base” is not “impotent” (McAdam 1982: 25). Theyhave indicated that the aggrieved can win substantial gains from power hold-ers without relying on external resources if given political opportunities,indigenous organizational strength, and the right mix of goals and tactics. Inthe political process model, moreover, the state is no longer hidden behindinter- and intra-SMO competition but plays an important role in social move-ments as a target of action. The state, by creating and closing opportunities,profoundly affects movement emergence and decline.

Yet, as with the RM perspective, there have been studies whose find-ings do not necessarily fit the standard formulation of the political processperspective. Concerning movement emergence, while the political processmodel stresses the availability of opportunities and mobilizing structures,researchers have found other factors more or equally important, such asthreats (Meyer and Staggenborg 1996; Tilly 1978; Van Dyke and Soule2002), discontents (Cable, Walsh, and Warland 1988; B. Useem 1980;Walsh and Warland 1983), and creative issue framing (Gamson and Meyer1996; Klandermans and Goslinga 1996).2 Some researchers (e.g., Piven andCloward 1992) have further contended that ties and networks are detri-mental to movement emergence since they are ordinarily verticallyarranged so as to constrain rather than promote collective action.

In fact, a study on homeless mobilizations in eight US cities in the1980s and early 1990s (Snow et al. 1998) suggests that the aggrieved may



start movements not because political opportunities expanded but becausetheir taken-for-granted daily life faced actual or threatened distraction.Another study on the same mobilizations (Cress and Snow 1996) hasshown how homeless persons without pre-existing ties and networksformed movements by creating SMOs with external allies willing to helpthe homeless organize. The movement in Tokyo also emerged in theabsence of large-scale political opportunities. It emerged when the TokyoMetropolitan Government (TMG) disrupted the routine life of homelesspersons in an encampment and, by doing so, invited the participation bynon-homeless activists interested in organizing homeless people.

With respect to movement trajectories, while the political processmodel posits that movements decline as opportunities, mobilizing struc-tures, and framing processes contract, researchers have suggested that theaction of opponents is more or equally important. For instance, Voss(1996) has demonstrated in a systematic analysis of the causes of the col-lapse of the Knights of Labor that the collapse resulted from employers’powerful mobilization, rather than declined opportunities, mobilizingstructures, and cognitive vigor. In a similar vein, Hipsher (1996) has discov-ered that, besides closing opportunities, actions of authoritarian and oppo-sition elites led to the decline of urban movements in Chile and Spain in thedemocratization process.

Why have we found these exceptions to the earlier formulation of thepolitical process perspective? With respect to movement emergence, oneimportant reason lies in its conceptualization of political opportunities,mobilizing structures, and cognitive liberation as objective, necessary andsufficient conditions that must be present before mobilization occurs. Therigid conditioning framework has invited not only exceptions but alsodebate over the minimum condition necessary for movement emergence.3 Ifwe leave the conditioning framework, however, we may find these andother factors relevant, if not necessary, to movement emergence. Forinstance, Gamson and Meyer (1996) note that organizers do not just inter-pret objective opportunities but frame potential opportunities—an effortwhich, if successful, works as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Similarly, Klander-mans and Goslinga (1996) suggest in their study of the Disability InsuranceAct in the Netherlands that people may use and accept certain frames noton the basis of factual knowledge of the issue but on the basis of the waythe issue is framed. This indicates that objective opportunities may not benecessary for movement emergence but interpretive opportunities of somekind are still relevant.

As for movement trajectories, the political process model generatescontradictory cases due to its static conceptualization of targets. Specifically,



while the model brings the state into movement discourse, it treats the statenot as an actor in itself but a static entity, “producing opportunities, await-ing mobilization, landing heavily on some actors and facilitating others, butnot participating directly in contention” (McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly2001: 74). The static conceptualization of the state has led to the attemptto explain movement dynamics in terms of opportunities, mobilizing struc-tures, and cognitive liberation on the part of challengers without payingsufficient attention to actions of the state. Yet, the state (as well as otheropponents) actively engages in contentious interaction with challengers,thereby shaping movement trajectories.

To explain movement emergence and development, I propose—à laMcAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly (2001)—to reconceptualize the state as anactor and opportunities, mobilizing structures, framing, and repertoire ofcontention as sites of active creation and appropriation. I argue that, likechallengers, the state participates in movements and that movementsemerge and develop as the parties interact with each other in a dynamicmanner. Instead of challengers reacting to objective conditions and monop-olizing movements, both challengers and polity members engage in attribu-tion of threats and opportunities, social or organizational appropriation,framing, and innovative action.

For present purposes, I further note that the political process model,since it deals with indigenous movements at a macro level of analysis,leaves unanswered the question of how, at the meso level, the aggrieved andtheir collaborators form movements, adjust goals and tactics as they inter-act with state agencies, and bring concrete benefits to the aggrieved alongthe way. In this study, I trace how homeless people, non-homeless activists,and state agencies interacted before collective action took place so as toshape the timing of movement emergence. I also trace how the ShinjukuCoalition continued to interact with its targets to produce specific out-comes through different mixes of operational goals and tactics. I furtherexplain how and why the movement declined when it did in interactive,relational terms.

In summary, the political process perspective provides a framework tounderstand mass-based movements of challengers rather than polity mem-bers. In this framework, the state no longer actively supports SMOs butconstitutes the main target of movements. In this sense, the model is morecompatible with recent lower-stratum movements than the RM model.However, its static conceptualization of the state, opportunities, mobilizingstructures, and framing processes has invited findings and arguments whichdo not resonate with some of the main tenets of the perspective. To explainmovement emergence, development, and outcomes, I suggest treating the



state as an actor and the key variables as subject to active creation, attribu-tion, and appropriation by both challengers and their targets. To examinethe movement in Tokyo, I further lower the level of analysis to the mesolevel and seek to illuminate shifting relations among the main actors andtheir effect on achievements made by the challengers.

ORGANIZATIONAL STUDIES OF HOMELESS MOVEMENTS

In the United States, homelessness began to grow rapidly in the early1980s. Since then, voluminous literature has appeared on the subject.Much of the literature, however, has highlighted medical problems among asignificant minority of the homeless population, such as mental illness andsubstance abuse. Blasi (1994) has found, for example, research articles onhomelessness in the early 1990s concentrated in the fields of medicine, psy-chiatry, and psychology.4 As T. Wright (1997) and other social scientistscriticized, therapeutic approaches to the problem of homelessness havehelped project a skewed image of the homeless population as a pathologicalgroup needing treatment rather than a possible agent of collective actionand change. As a matter of fact, already in the 1980s, homeless peopleengaged in collective action quite frequently. According to one study (Imig1996), homeless people and their advocates staged some 60 protest in thatdecade that were demonstrative enough to catch the attention of thenational press. According to another (Cress and Snow 2000), the homelesstook collective action in over 50 cities in the latter half of the 1980s alone,and they were responsible for more than 500 protest events which occurredin 17 of these cities in the same period.5

It was against this backdrop that a number of studies began to illumi-nate mobilizations among the homeless. Wagner and Cohen (1991) studiedcollective protest that occurred among homeless people in an encampmentin Portland, Oregon, and showed how the homeless participants achievedimportant gains. Wagner (1993) further studied a homeless community thatdeveloped after the protest, detailing how some of the homeless protestorscontinued their activism albeit in a limited way. Similarly, T. Wright exam-ined mobilization among the homeless in an encampment in Chicago(1995), and later provided an insightful study of spatial exclusion of andresistance by homeless people in Chicago and San Jose (1997). Perhapsmost systematic have been a series of studies by Cress and Snow (some-times with their co-authors). Their studies are based on extensive researchthey conducted between the late 1980s and the early 1990s on 15 homelessSMOs in eight US cities (Boston, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Minneapolis,Oakland, Philadelphia, and Tucson), and, at the same time, they encompass



the emergence (Snow et al. 1998), development (Cress 1993, 1997; Cressand Snow 1996), and outcomes (Cress and Snow 2000) of mobilizations inthese cities.

Here I briefly summarize and examine the studies by Cress and othersbecause they provide a good background against which to characterize mystudy. According to Snow et al. (1998), collective action began amonghomeless people when their taken-for-granted routines were disrupted byevents which dramatically reduced services (e.g., closing of a shelter) orincreased social control (e.g., tightened policing and shutdown of a home-less encampment). Thereafter, in order to sustain action, homeless peopleformed SMOs because they were typically not in communal settings (Cressand Snow 1996). And for these SMOs to be viable over time, they needed anumber of resources. More specifically, to be viable, homeless movementorganizations required at least nine resources: (1) leaders, (2) supplies, (3)meeting space, (4) office space, (5) tactical knowledge, (6) organizationalknowledge, (7) external group’s endorsement, (8) external group’s partici-pation in action, and (9) referrals to potential resource providers (ibid.).These resources combined with others, such as cadre, money, and con-stituency, to assure SMO viability.

Further, these SMOs achieved gains when certain conditions com-bined. Homeless movement organizations generally pursued resources,organizational representation, rights (voting and welfare), homeless facili-ties and programs, and reduced harassment and discrimination (Cress andSnow 2000). The achievement of these outcomes depended on the presenceor absence of five factors, namely, (1) SMO viability, (2) disruptive tactics,(3) sympathetic city councilors, (4) responsive city administration, and (5)diagnostic/prognostic frames. Overall, when an SMO met more of theseconditions, it achieved more of the outcomes. Also, in general, to produceoutcomes, SMO viability and frames played a particularly important role.

A significant contribution of these studies is that they demonstratedsuccessful homeless movements are possible without relying on externalresources (cf. the RM model) or indigenous resources alone (cf. the politicalprocess model). According to Cress and Snow (1996), external non-home-less supporters provided homeless organizations with three-fourths of thenine resource types recapitulated above. Moreover, nearly all viable SMOshad “benefactor” relations with a single external support group thatoffered the majority of resources. In some cases, these groups initiatedmobilization among the homeless and played the leadership role (Cress1993, 1997).

Another significant contribution is that they illuminated how socialmovements, in general, produce different types of gains. This is an area of



research in which systematic theorization is relatively underdeveloped(Giugni, McAdam, and Tilly 1999). As I alluded in my examination of theRM and political process perspectives, in the RM model, outcomes arelargely about organizational survival and transformations and, in the polit-ical process model, they are conceptualized in terms of overall success (orfailure). Hence, I consider the specification of multiple gains and theirexplanatory factors as a significant advancement.

There are a few questions, however, that are not addressed or fullydealt with in the pieces by Cress, Snow, and their co-authors. First, how iscollective action triggered by quotidian disruption related to the involve-ment of non-homeless collaborators? Second, how and why do once viableSMOs decline or disappear? Third, relatedly, how do dynamic interactionsbetween SMOs and their targets and relations between the homeless andtheir benefactors possibly affect movement trajectories and outcomes? 6 Inthis study, I seek to fill these lacunae by drawing on the relational perspec-tive and taking a longitudinal approach, emphasizing interactions and rela-tions among actors, including polity members, both before and after initialmobilization.

If we take a longitudinal, interactive approach, involving theaggrieved, their collaborators, and their targets, we may come up withdifferent answers to the same questions. For instance, in their study onquotidian disruption, Snow et al. (1998), being aware that disruptiveevents do not always trigger action, ask why it is the case. The authorspropose that events fail when they are not sufficiently disruptive. InJapan, as the authors have found for the United States, collective actionindeed emerged among the homeless when events, especially actual orthreatened eviction, occurred so as to disrupt their quotidian. Yet, thehistory of the movement in Tokyo indicates that the answer may lie in theprior interactions and relations among actors. For example, an evictionoccurred in North Shinjuku in 2002 (Asahi, March 13, 2002), but it didnot trigger action because Takai, siding with local authorities, ignoredthe incident. In general, the Coalition leader in the final period of themovement attributed evictions to ill management of encampments by thehomeless and discouraged anti-eviction mobilization of the aggrieved.

Similarly, movement trajectories may depend on the interaction andrelations among homeless people, their collaborators, and targets ratherthan on the number of resources SMOs secure. While Cress and Snow(1996) assume that the tripartite relations are constant, some studies exam-ining movement and advocacy groups working with homeless people indi-cate that these relations may be more complex and changing. T. Wright’s(1995) study on an encampment in Chicago offers a good example. In the



encampment that he studied, the relations between homeless persons andtheir supporters became conflictive as city officials tried to negotiate onlywith the supporters. The homeless eventually negotiated separately withcity officials over the future of the encampment and disbanded it by agree-ing to move to apartments although they wanted to retain it for otherhomeless people. Other studies (e.g., Demirel 1999; Rocha 1994; T. Wright1997) at least suggest that the relations between the aggrieved and theirsupporters are not always harmonious and cooperative but can sometimesbe quite contradictory.

These instances indicate that we need to take into account interac-tions and relations among actors to explain movement trajectories andoutcomes. Cress and Snow (1996) did suggest that, rather than theabsolute number of resources, the type of resources and the way theyinteract might be more important in accounting for movement trajecto-ries. I further suggest that we treat crucial resources as embodied inhomeless people and their collaborators rather than conceptualize them,as they did, in terms of tangible and intangible ones that may or may notbe necessary and sufficient for movement viability and success. I also pro-pose that we view their targets not as static entities but active partici-pants in movements. The homeless and their collaborators outside thepolity constitute agents of movements, and the way in which they inter-act with their targets shapes movements in their emergence, trajectories,and outcomes.

The present study begins analysis of the movement in Tokyo by trac-ing interactions among the future parties to the movement. The study thenexamines the initial mobilization process and follows the trajectory of themovement until its quiescence. In so doing, it pays close attention todynamic interactions between the challengers and polity members as wellas shifting relations among the homeless, their collaborators, and targets ofaction. I will show that goals and tactical responses change over time in theprocess of interaction, producing gains whose characteristics depend on thetripartite relations. In what follows, I present the relational perspectivewhich is conducive to longitudinal, interactive analysis. I also define move-ment gains on the basis of some of the most recent contributions to the con-ceptualization of outcomes.

THE RELATIONAL PERSPECTIVE

The relational perspective has been advanced by political process analystsand continues to illuminate challengers’ movements. At the same time, itrepresents a substantial revision of the political process model (McAdam,



Tarrow, and Tilly 2001). For present purposes, the following modificationsare most important:

• To explain how movements emerge, the relational perspectivelooks into interactions among actors well before initial mobiliza-tion occurs. Mobilization represents the transgressive form ofmore contained interactions among actors. The perspectiveexplains movement trajectories also in terms of dynamic interac-tions among actors.

• In doing so, the perspective expands and activates what the polit-ical process model treats as static, objective conditions. Specifi-cally, it reconceptualizes (a) opportunities, (b) mobilizingstructures, (c) framing processes, and (d) repertoires of con-tention as (a’) attribution of threats and opportunities, (b’) socialand organizational appropriation, (c’) framing of identities,issues, and actors, and (d’) arraying of innovative forms of collec-tive action.

• In the perspective, moreover, attribution, appropriation, framing,and arraying of innovative action are not the properties of chal-lengers alone. Their targets, especially polity members, and thirdparties such as the media also engage in these activities, therebycontributing to the dynamic unfolding of movements.

This reformulation is useful for the present study because 1) it does notlimit challengers to the aggrieved but allows in their collaborators asactors; 2) it is as applicable to meso-level analysis as it is to micro- andmacro-level analyses; and 3) it does not posit a specific, predetermined setof objective conditions for movement emergence—conditions which mightcontradict the present case.

In addition to the above reformulation, the relational perspectiveoffers a very useful concept, namely, relational mechanism. Relationalmechanisms “alter connections among people, groups, and interpersonalnetworks” (McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly 2001: 26). The concept is useful inspecifying crucial mechanisms which changed the relations among home-less people in Shinjuku, non-homeless activists who led the Shinjuku Coali-tion, and officials at the TMG and the Shinjuku Ward Government(SWG)—crucial in that each shaped the dominant mode of the tripartiterelations at a given point in time and, in doing so, largely determined a par-ticular set of operational goals and tactical choices on the part of the chal-lengers. These shifting tripartite relations, in my hypothesis, significantlyaffected outcomes.



In assessing movement outcomes,7 I adopt the criterion elaborated byAmenta and Young. Following Tilly (1978) and others, Amenta and Young(1999: 24) define positive impacts of challengers as “those groupwiseadvantages or disadvantages from which non-participants in a challengecannot be easily excluded.” These collective benefits are not limited to pol-icy impacts, on which studies of movement outcomes have concentrated(Giugni 1999: xxi-xxiii), but encompass “less tangible [benefits], such asnew ways to refer to members of a group” (Amenta and Young 1999: 24)as long as they serve the entire collectivity rather than a specific movementgroup. From this perspective, polity members’ acceptance of movementgroups, often considered as success in itself, does not constitute a collectivebenefit unless it actually leads to one (see also Bush 1992 for a similar argu-ment).

This criterion permits us to take into account positive impacts outsidestated goals—impacts which have tended to be underemphasized (Giugni,McAdam, and Tilly 1999). In the case of the movement in Tokyo, the Shin-juku Coalition espoused public guarantee of employment and livelihoodfor all homeless people regardless of level of government. This is clearly areform goal but does require major institutional rearrangements and ishence difficult to achieve, especially in the absence of broad politicalopportunities which undermine regime stability and render political elitesvulnerable to insurgency. If we only look at the stated goal, then the move-ment in Tokyo was a complete failure. Yet, it does not mean that the move-ment delivered no benefit to the aggrieved. The above definition ofcollective benefits enables us to capture these gains.

At the same time, it leads us to pay attention to the opposite case inwhich challengers exaggerate gains. For instance, for the purpose ofencouraging homeless protestors, the Coalition leadership proclaimed as anachievement of their own the provision of a winter shelter in ShinjukuWard (Shinjuku Renraku Kai 1997), which was planned ahead by the wardand metropolitan governments and implemented as originally scheduled.The Coalition, although it mobilized homeless people around this policyitem, did not affect the plan or implementation in any significant way. Inthis study, these instances are not considered as gains. In addition, it is quitepossible that movements generate negative impacts (or collective losses) orundermine earlier gains no matter how inadvertently. This study also illu-minates these adverse effects when and where they apply.

In addition to collective benefits, the present study introduces the notionof selective benefits. Selective benefits serve only a segment of the entirepopulation which a movement group(s) claims to represent. When gains,tangible or intangible, outside or inside policy, serve a small proportion of



the constituency, I consider them as selective benefits. This concept exertsits utility in this study because the Shinjuku Coalition produced a gain thatbenefited only a small proportion of the aggrieved in a later phase of themovement when the non-homeless leadership approached TMG officials tohelp them open exclusive shelters. In other words, I use this concept tohighlight the effect that the relations among the main parties had on gains.However, this notion can be used in various circumstances; for example, itcan be used as a conceptual devise not to miss any benefit that movementsgenerate or to shed light on nuanced outcome dynamics shaped by relationsoutside those among central actors.

HOW MIXED MOVEMENTS WORK

While the present study draws on the relational perspective, I note that itdeviates from the main project of the perspective. The main project of therelational perspective is to identify mechanisms (not only relational but alsoother types of mechanisms) and processes recurring through a wide varietyof contentious phenomena, such as social movements, ethnic mobilization,and revolutions. The relational perspective seeks to explain these phenom-ena in terms of different kinds of mechanisms and processes which combinein sequence. For example, key to the broad process of revolution are themechanisms of “infringement of elite interests,” “suddenly imposed griev-ances,” and “decertification” (McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly 2001: 198).Further, while the relational perspective encourages paired comparison ofcases to explain why, for example, uncommon cases lead to different end-ings in terms of different sequential combinations of similar mechanisms,this study, as it is limited to a single case, does not offer such a comparativeanalysis.

Within the single case, however, the study seeks to make some gener-alizable arguments about mixed movements, more specifically, about howlower-stratum people and external supporters outside the polity formmovements, develop them as they interact with targets, and produce gains,especially in the absence of broad political opportunities. Concerningmovement emergence, I argue that lower-stratum people and external chal-lengers form movements by assembling resources, especially intangible onesembodied in the two parties, such as anger, belief in a cause, strong per-sonal commitments, repertoires of action, and political skills. Well-estab-lished mobilizing structures among lower-stratum people or collaboratorsare not a necessary condition for movement emergence, but they may becreated if they are conducive to collective action or develop as the chal-lengers engage in contentious interaction with their targets.8



As with other movements, the timing of initial mobilization dependson the way in which future parties to the movement interact among them-selves in a dynamic manner. In the initial mobilization process, attributionof threats and/or opportunities occurs among challengers with or withoutcollaborators. If attribution does not occur even when and where thereseems to be good reason for successful mobilization, then follows the statusquo. In fact, whenever transgressive mobilization occurs during a move-ment, it accompanies attribution of opportunities and/or threats, althoughthe content of attribution may differ between the aggrieved and their col-laborators, depending on their ongoing interests and relations.

Movement trajectories and outcomes also depend on the way inwhich actors interact. Here, the action of targets, including the state, is par-ticularly important. It can shape goals and tactical choices of the chal-lengers by affecting the relations between the aggrieved and theircollaborators. Broadly, when the action of targets facilitates the develop-ment of solidaristic relations between the two, then goals are likely todirectly challenge the targets or so are they perceived by the parties, andtactics are more likely to be disruptive than institutional. This increases thepossibility of achieving gains. Moreover, I expect that these gains are moreoften of the collective rather than selective type because the crucialresources assembled encourage and enable the pursuit of gains that benefiteveryone. Conversely, when the action of targets hinders or undermines sol-idarity between the two parties, then goals and tactics are expected to bedivergent or conciliatory, resulting in less collective benefits and/or moreselective ones. Weak solidarity makes it difficult for the parties to offer cru-cial resources for common use and goals. The challengers prioritize whatseems achievable with resources available at hand.

In the chapters to follow, I apply these hypotheses to the movement inTokyo, as I examine interactions among actors prior to the initial mobiliza-tion and compare three different periods of the movement by paying closeattention to actions of the SWG and TMG and their effects on the tripartiterelations as well as goals, tactics, and gains of the challengers.



Chapter Four

The Initial Period of the Movement(February 1994–January 1996)

In this chapter, I first trace how the future parties to the movement inTokyo interacted among themselves before mobilization occurred in early1994. I then examine the initial period of the movement, which is demar-cated by brokerage at the beginning and an anti-eviction campaign at theend. Brokerage is “the linking of two or more previously unconnectedsocial sites by a unit that mediates their relations with one another and/orwith yet other sites” (McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly 2001: 26). In Tokyo,brokerage occurred as the patrol team in San’ya noticed a large-scale evic-tion of the homeless in West Shinjuku, went to the site, and organized aseries of protests, thereby enabling the aggrieved to directly confront offi-cials at the Shinjuku Ward Government (SWG) and the Tokyo Metropoli-tan Government (TMG).

Brokerage not only contributed to movement emergence but alsoshaped the dominant mode of relations among the homeless, non-homelessactivists, and their targets that characterized the period. Previously, the tri-partite relations consisted of conflicting relations between the homeless andpublic officials in Shinjuku on the one hand, and weak relations betweenthe homeless and the activists, on the other. In the initial period, these rela-tions changed; the homeless and the activists cultivated solidarity and thetwo parties together formed antagonistic relations with the public officials.Brokerage changed the tripartite relations by bringing the activists into aclose contact with the homeless in Shinjuku and by bringing the two partiesinto confrontational interactions with the officials.

In the initial period, the Shinjuku Coalition pursued public guaranteeof employment and livelihood for all the homeless in Shinjuku. Since theSWG and TMG denied mass negotiations and the latter tried to sweep the

69


encampment again, the realization of mass negotiations and protection ofthe encampment became the Coalition’s operational goals. Consistent withthe tripartite relations, all of these goals were underpinned by commoninterests between the two parties. To achieve the operational goals and getcloser to the ultimate goal, homeless people and their collaborators usednon-normative, direct action tactics throughout the period. As a result, theybrought a number of collective benefits to the homeless in Shinjuku, includ-ing easier access to regular welfare, mass negotiations with the local wel-fare office, and a wider public recognition of the homeless issue.

PRE-MOVEMENT INTERACTION AMONG ACTORS

In Shinjuku, conflict between public officials and homeless people dates asfar back as the end of the 1970s, although there were not so many home-less people in the town at that time (perhaps 150 or so on one day). Con-flicting interaction between the two parties began as Tokyo’s GovernorSuzuki hinted at the possibility of relocating the TMG headquarters toWest Shinjuku from Chiyoda Ward. SWG officials saw it as a great oppor-tunity and became eager to have the TMG relocated into their jurisdiction(Sasaki 1991). As a measure to attract the TMG headquarters, the SWGattempted to promote an image that Shinjuku was a “clean and happytown.” In 1979, to erase homelessness from Shinjuku, the governmentappropriated existing organizations such as the police department and thelocal cleaning office of the TMG, and formed an Anti-Vagrants Confer-ence (Imagawa 1987).

In 1980, Chief Yamamoto of the SWG turned the conference into apermanent entity called the Environmental Clean-Up Conference for theShinjuku Station Area (Shinjuku Ward Newsletter, November 15, 1980).Along with “barkers, illegal signs, drug addicts, gays, garbage, cigarettebuts, sidewalk vendors, illegally parked bicycles, and noise,” the conferenceframed homeless people as environmental hazards, and started a “clean-upmovement” (ibid., November 5, 1983). The clean-up movement included ayear-round patrol of the town to disperse homeless people. Patrollersdemonstratively made rounds of Shinjuku, telling homeless individuals tomove to some other place or seek welfare in the local welfare office (Ima-gawa 1987).

The Environmental Clean-Up Conference had difficulty in erasinghomelessness, however. Between 1982 and 1983, a total of 920 conferencemembers made a total of about 100 patrols, and they had to tell a total ofnearly 4,000 “vagrants” to evacuate (Shinjuku Ward Newsletter, Novem-ber 15, 1983). In 1984, therefore, the conference requested Governor



Suzuki to treat vagrancy as a common issue for the metropolitan andtwenty-three ward governments and to take initiative in solving the prob-lem (Imagawa 1987). Suzuki responded only by forming a small researchunit in the TMG’s mental illness research institute. Yet, in 1985 the TMGdecided to move to West Shinjuku. Encouraged by this decision, the confer-ence continued with year-round patrols throughout the 1980s.

Homeless people in Shinjuku by no means passively accepted the dis-persion and containment strategies of the Environmental Clean-Up Confer-ence for the Shinjuku Station Area. Just like their counterparts in US cities(T. Wright 1997), homeless people in Shinjuku resisted by avoiding author-ities, denying their deviant image, and settling in groups. As the conferencecontinued with patrol, homeless people learned when and where to expectthe next round and evacuated their place temporarily to avoid patrollers(Imagawa 1987; Metropolitan Government Courant, October 5, 1993). Tooverturn the deviant image, homeless people in stations formed teams toclean up after themselves as well as commuters, demonstrating that theywere well aware of the importance of keeping public places clean and thatthey were quite willing to compensate for their presence by following thenorm (Asahi, December 2, 1993). In addition, a number of homeless peoplein Shinjuku resisted by seeking welfare services on their own will instead offollowing exclusionary patrollers’ instructions to do so.1

The most outstanding form of resistance to the dispersion and con-tainment strategies of the clean-up movement was the creation of homelessencampments. In the 1980s and early 1990s, homeless people in ShinjukuWard created encampments of different sizes in different places (Imagawa1987; Jinmin Patorôru Han 1993). Among them, the most conspicuouswas the one on the west side of Japan Railways (JR) Shinjuku station; itwas created shortly after the construction of the TMG headquarters wascompleted in 1991. This encampment was conspicuous because it waslocated in one of the most visible places in Tokyo. Specifically, the encamp-ment formed in the valley of some of Japan’s tallest skyscrapers, includingthe newly built TMG complex, Mitsui Building, and luxurious hotels, suchas the Keio Plaza Hotel. There are a couple of underground passages whichrun parallel along Chuo-Dori Avenue, connecting JR Shinjuku station tothe TMG complex (see Figure 3). The passages are 300-yard long and haveshops, restaurants, and offices lined up on them. The encampment encom-passed these two passages.

The encampment grew rapidly after its formation. By fall 1993,homeless people set up some 50 cardboard shacks (Metropolitan Govern-ment Courant, November 5, 1993). By early 1994, they added 100 others,though their permanency varied (Morikawa 1994a). Moreover, besides the

The Initial Period of the Movement (February 1994–January 1996) 71


shack dwellers, a number of homeless people began to sleep on the passagesfor a night, pushing the total number of the homeless on the passages up to400, depending on the night (Asahi, November 2, 1993; Ashizaki 1993).The Environmental Clean-Up Conference for the Shinjuku Station Areacould do little to stop the growth of the encampment. The station area wasparticularly attractive for homeless persons in search of food and informaljobs, including day laboring jobs (Jinmin Patorôru Han 1993; Yamaguchi2001). With numerous restaurants on both sides of the station, discardedfood was abundant. Day laboring opportunities were also relatively abun-dant since labor recruiters congregated in the station area. In addition, theunderground passages have “roofs.”

The emergence and growth of the encampment certainly threatenedthe interests of local authorities, merchants, and businesses, and theyquickly responded to the threat. In the summer of 1993, merchant andbusiness associations presented the TMG with petitions addressed to Gov-ernor Suzuki and called for a solution to the problem in the specific area


Figure 3. Map of Shinjuku.


(Metropolitan Government Courant, October 5, 1993; Morikawa 1994a).The TMG responded immediately and in three ways. First, in fall 1993, itslocal building office began confiscating in the encampment twice a monthwith no prior notice (whereas it used to do so once a month with priornotice). Second, in the winter of 1993, the TMG required the Conference ofWelfare Office Managers to address homelessness in Tokyo (Shinjuku Ren-raku Kai 1995). Third, in early 1994, the Construction Bureau of the TMGevicted the homeless on the passages. This action invited brokerage by thepatrol team of the San’ya League, which was ready to respond to anyunusual event occurring to homeless people.

In the 1980s, the San’ya League had some interest in helping thehomeless. Besides sponsoring the annual Winter Struggle, for example, itresponded to public violence against day laborers sleeping rough. Yet, itsmajor concern was to tackle labor issues, especially those involving yakuzaorganizations that ran construction or recruitment firms (Yamaoka 1996).These organizations used violence to control day laborers, sometimes forc-ing them into unpaid, bonded labor. One such firm also tried to underminethe League by shooting its leader to death (Gill 2001; Sassen 1991;Yamaoka 1996). The League mobilized numerous day laborers to battlewith these firms to get day laborers out of forced labor, to let the firms paywages, and to keep San’ya out of their control (Yamaoka 1996).

Around 1990, however, the San’ya League increasingly found itselflosing its targets and constituency. Construction firms, including yakuza-operated ones, had begun to withdraw from San’ya. A number of daylaborers left for labor camps, never to return. Those who remained wereincreasingly older men, and they were permanently homeless. In 1990,the movement community in the district built a San’ya Workers WelfareHall to cultivate communal ties among day laborers (Hiyatoi ZenkyoNews, November 15, 1990; Odawara 1988). In the hall, the Leaguewaited for its clients, homeless or otherwise, to come in for labor or med-ical consultation (SRFK 1992). It no longer engaged in mass mobilization,though it continued with anniversary rallies and demonstrations inprotest of the death of the leader and a photographer, both murdered by alocal yakuza group.

At the same time, however, some efforts began to understand San’ya’schanging landscape and to revive a mass movement. Stimulated by a riotwhich occurred in Kamagasaki in 1990 for the first time since 1973 (Hiya-toi Zenkyô News, November 15, 1990), the San’ya League and advocacygroups began to see the growing homeless population as a potential actor,and explored ways to organize it. Most importantly for present purposes,some members of the League and advocates, including Takai and Harada,



formed a unit for weekly patrol in and around San’ya. During patrol, theteam served food to homeless individuals and collected data on theirhealth, employment, and welfare use to understand their needs in relationto public agencies (Jinmin Patorôru Han 1993). Albeit only during theWinter Struggle, the team extended its patrol to Ikebukuro, Shibuya, andNorth and West Shinjuku (Yamakara, March 15, 1992). In these places, theteam saw some familiar faces from San’ya, although most were new to it(Yamakara, February 28, 1993).

In Shibuya, there was also a group that had some interest in homelesspeople. The group formed in 1992 to help undocumented Iranian immi-grant workers solve labor and other problems (Mitsu 1995), but it noticedthat there were numerous homeless men in Yoyogi Park where Iranianimmigrants congregated and the group occasionally went. The group beganto mix with these homeless people and sometimes sponsored festive events,such as a summer festival. The group leader, who was once a well-knownstudent activist, had also participated in the Winter Struggle in San’ya(ibid.). He understood that the experience of day laborers was not totallydissociated from that of Iranian immigrants working in Japan. Besides, thegroup was aware of and responsive to exclusionary forces operating againstthe Iranians in Shibuya. When the TMG conducted a large-scale eviction inWest Shinjuku, the group quickly associated the event with exclusionarypractices that were occurring in Shibuya.

The Shibuya group differed from the San’ya League and its patrolunit in many ways. First, its members were much younger than those of theSan’ya League and slightly younger than Takai and Harada. Second, unlikemany of the League and patrol members, members of this group tended tohave affluent familial backgrounds, although they often recognized them-selves as anti-establishment “dropouts” from mainstream society. Third,the Shibuya group was not concerned about territorial specificities, bothgeographical and thematic, on which activists in San’ya tended to dwell.While the Shibuya group focused on labor and legal issues among Iranianimmigrants, this focus was situated within its broader concerns about gen-der, racial/ethnic, and class inequalities, which were not limited to Shibuyaand San’ya (Mitsu 1995). In contrast, the San’ya League and the patrolteam were concerned with lower-stratum male workers who were typicallyfound in yoseba districts, including San’ya (S. Honda 1997).

Yet, activists in San’ya and Shibuya were all interested in homelesspeople. In particular, the patrol team was seeking an opportunity to organ-ize homeless day laborers in Tokyo. During the 1992–93 Winter Struggle,patrollers came to know that the TMG was well ahead of them in graspingthe trends in homelessness in the city, since winter emergency shelters for



San’ya laborers, which opened every year,2 accepted all homeless people inTokyo during the particular winter (Jinmin Patorôru Han 1993). Accordingly,they began to wonder how they could possibly organize the homeless wellbeyond the San’ya district (Kasai 1999). When the TMG evicted homeless per-sons near JR Shinjuku station, therefore, the activists were ready to respond.

The above recapitulation of pre-movement interactions among the keyactors in Tokyo tells that a movement does not emerge suddenly from a vac-uum. If we look into meso-level interactions occurring among importantactors well before movement emergence, then we are likely to find the seedsof transgressive mobilization already planted. At the same time, it also sug-gests that close relationships between the aggrieved and their external collab-orators are not a necessary condition for movement emergence. AlthoughSanya’s activists had some contact with homeless people in Shinjuku, it wasvery limited; they had much more contact with the homeless in San’ya. Themain constituency of the Shibuya group was not the homeless but Iranianimmigrants, and it hardly knew the homeless in Shinjuku. Further, well-established mobilizing structures do not constitute a necessary condition,either. As we will see below, there was some social organization among thehomeless in West Shinjuku, but internal ties developed as they engaged incontentious action together. The activists’ groups were both loosely struc-tured and, they, too, developed mutual ties only after mobilization began.

THE INITIAL MOBILIZATION PROCESS

The relational perspective posits that the mobilization process entails attri-bution of threats and opportunities, social/organizational appropriation,framing of issues, actors, identities, and arraying of innovative collectiveactions. Not only challengers but also their opponents engage in theseactivities. In the present case, the future parties to the movement experi-enced some of these activities before brokerage occurred. In the 1980s,SWG officials found an opportunity to have the TMG headquarters relo-cated in their jurisdiction, framed the homeless as “vagrants” and home-lessness as an environmental hazard, and created the EnvironmentalClean-Up Conference for the Shinjuku Station Area with local merchantsand businesses to erase homelessness with dispersion and containmentstrategies. Threatened by exclusionary forces, the homeless in Shinjukuresisted by avoiding authorities, framing themselves as part of mainstreamsociety, reaching welfare services on their own, and creating encampments.

In San’ya around 1990, some activists and advocates sought opportu-nities to revive a mass movement by organizing the growing homeless pop-ulation. They recognized the homeless as a potential actor, created a unit to



focus on patrols to reach them, and organized a collective kitchen. Later,when homeless people formed an encampment in the valley of high-risecommercial and business buildings near JR Shinjuku station, businessesand shop owners felt threatened. The latter petitioned to urge the TMGtoward dissolution of the encampment (Metropolitan GovernmentCourant, October 5, 1993; Morikawa 1994b). The TMG responded bysweeping the encampment—an unprecedented action which caught theattention of many, including San’ya’s patrollers and media reporters (Asahi,February 18, 1994; Mainichi, February 18, 1994; Nikkei, February 18,1994; Sankei, February 18, 1994).

But these activities did not constitute a movement since they involvedno public demonstration of contentious interactions between homeless peo-ple and public officials in Shinjuku. It was brokerage by the activists inSan’ya that helped generate a movement. Brokerage occurred soon after theConstruction Bureau of the TMG evicted 150–200 homeless people in theWest Shinjuku encampment. On February 17, 1994, a squad of severaldozen TMG employees, workmen, and plainclothesmen appeared in thesettlement. They broke down cardboard shacks on the underground pas-sages and threw them away. They also took away other belongings of thehomeless to storage rooms elsewhere. Following the sweep, the squad putup fences along one passage to shut off the space occupied by homelesspeople and placed plant boxes along the other to close much of the space(S. Honda 1997; Morikawa 1994b; Nikkei, February 18, 1994; Sankei,February 18, 1994).

Construction officials conducted the sweep, saying it was “removal ofstreet garbage” as stipulated in the Road Traffic Act (Inaba 1997), andplaced fences and plant boxes in the name of “environmental improvementwork” (Morikawa 1994b). In doing so, the squad urged homeless personsto go to an “environmental clean-up tent,” temporarily set up at the site bythe local welfare office to send by bus the evictees and other homeless peo-ple in West Shinjuku to a temporary shelter in Ota Ward. The shelter con-stituted a homeless program recently devised by the TMG and twenty-threewards. About 120 homeless persons in West Shinjuku were sent to thisshelter (ibid.).

Within hours of the eviction and sheltering of the homeless, the patrolteam and the Shibuya group learned about the incident and ran to the evic-tion site. The patrol team was particularly quick in taking action. By tap-ping welfare offices across Tokyo, it soon discovered that the TMG andShinjuku’s welfare office violated the original shelter program planned bythe TMG and twenty-three wards (Jinmin Patorôru Han 1994; ShinjukuRenraku Kai 1995). While this program was to shelter “aged and/or



invalid” homeless men in central Tokyo for one month and put them onregular welfare, the TMG unilaterally used it to erase homelessness fromWest Shinjuku and the local welfare office sent all evictees to the shelterand tried to release able-bodied homeless men within a week.3 The patrolteam held a press conference at the TMG headquarters and disclosed thewrongdoings (Jinmin Patorôru Han 1994).

Within a week of the eviction, the patrol team began mobilizing thehomeless in the station area. There were a number of homeless personswho refused to go to the shelter or came back from elsewhere to find theirbelongings gone. With these homeless persons, the team made sudden visitsto the TMG and the local welfare office, directly confronted officials, andprotested the eviction, confiscation, and temporary sheltering of the home-less (Shinjuku Renraku Kai 1997). The number of homeless participants inprotest rapidly increased from one to a few and eventually to several dozenas the Construction Bureau of the TMG persistently continued with confis-cation. The Bureau kept confiscating in turn because the station area keptattracting the homeless, including returnees from the temporary shelter.They built even more cardboard shacks than before on one of the under-ground passages which escaped complete closure—the one with plantboxes (Nakamura 1998).

Many believe that homeless people have few important possessions.As Liebow (1993) informed us in his study of homeless women, however,homeless people do carry important items. The women Liebow studied car-ried such items as “a birth certificate, pocket-size ID, varieties of legal doc-uments or official papers” (ibid.: 32). Similarly, the homeless in Shinjukucarried an insurance card, a pension book, a deposit book, a seal, doctor’sprescription, and/or a driver’s license. They also had clothes in their bags.Further, those who worked as day laborers had gloves, a helmet, and othersmall items that were sometimes necessary to be hired readily for construc-tion work. Confiscation, therefore, gave good reason for homeless peopleto participate. And, by protesting collectively, many did regain their per-sonal belongings (Kasai 1999).

Yet, homeless people joined collective protest not simply to have theirbelongings back. Many participated because they were angry with publicofficials and believed in a cause. Anger was already apparent when theTMG evicted the homeless since some protested on the spot (Morikawa1994b). Immediately after the eviction, a homeless man told a journalistindignantly, “They [TMG officials] think we are garbage. How can theyput these plants [here] while doing nothing to secure employment for us?”(Tokyo, February 18, 1994). Another man said, “Let me tell you what gov-ernment people have on their mind. If they just evict us with this fencing,



they’re gonna be criticized badly by the media, right? So they are givingtoken welfare. And, what does it happen if many people go to the Ota shel-ter? I’m talking about here. Fewer people stay, right? They are fencingwhile people are away so they can’t stay any longer. That’s their plan. I ain’ta fool. So I’m not gonna go to the shelter. I’m gonna stay right here andkeep bothering them” (Morikawa 1994b: 38).

Asked by a media reporter why he was joining the protest at theTMG, still another man answered, “I’m joining because I don’t think whatthey [TMG officials] did is right” (Tokyo, February 24, 1994). Upon con-fronting TMG officials, a man shouted, “Give my stuff back to me! Youtook it without my permission, didn’t you? Bring it back right here!” (Flyerdated February 24, 1994). During a couple of months following the evic-tion, 11 homeless persons died in the station area (Inaba 1997). Witnessinghis neighbor pass away shortly after confiscation, a young homeless man,usually quiet, suddenly stood up and began a protest speech in the stationarea (ibid.).

The way public officials responded fueled their anger. For instance, onone day, construction officials at the TMG told protestors that they wouldcertainly repeat confiscations “if that kind of situation [settling in groups]appears again” (Flyer dated February 24, 1994). On another day, the offi-cials locked the door and picketed the office to shut off protestors (Shin-juku Renraku Kai 1997: 15–16). In addition, the local welfare director toldprotestors that the welfare office had nothing to do with the eviction andthat the office sent evictees to a shelter “for the purpose of protectinghuman life” (Letter of Request dated March 4, 1994). To the question whatwould happen to the homeless who were to be released in a week, heanswered, “I don’t know. Unless their case fits the welfare law, I guess wehave to turn a blind eye” (ibid.). On another occasion, the welfare officemanager said to protestors, “If you can’t find a job, that’s because you arenot making enough effort” (Shinjuku Renraku Kai 1997: 15–16). Theseprovocative responses by the targets of action helped the homeless continueto participate in direct action protest.

Already interested in organizing homeless people beyond San’ya, thepatrollers from San’ya, especially Harada and Takai, not only were quick intaking action but also showed a high degree of commitment from thebeginning. The activists stayed night after night in the encampment to getcloser to the homeless (Committee for Anti-Employment Struggle 1994; S.Honda 1997). Every day they made three rounds of West Shinjuku with lit-tle sleep, talking to every homeless person they could find with a blanketand a flyer. Each flyer gave a detailed report of the past protests and calledfor participation in the next. In addition, since participation in protest



deprived the homeless of the time to secure food, the patrol team prepareda light meal upon every protest event (Committee for Anti-UnemploymentStruggle 1994).

Further, from early on, the team introduced to the encampmentweekly patrol and collective application for welfare at the local welfareoffice. Patrol was for the homeless to help protect their own lives andrecruit protest participants. During patrol, homeless persons met with afew hundred other homeless people in Shinjuku. They asked about healthand dietary conditions as well as experience of confiscation while givingout flyers written by the patrol team (Flyers dated March 1994). Whenhomeless patrollers found someone sick or injured, they referred or tookhim/her to collective welfare application at the welfare office. The activistsused group welfare application not just to help homeless individuals obtainwelfare but to facilitate solidarity among the homeless in Shinjuku (Com-mittee for Anti-Unemployment Struggle 1994).

While the relational perspective stresses the significance of innovativeactions in mobilization, it also recognizes that few of these actions arereally new (McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly 2001: 48–50). Insurgents usuallyborrow or build on familiar ideas and practices to generate innovativeactions. This was the case with the direct action protest style of the patrolteam as well as regular activities that it introduced to the encampment.Specifically, the team imported from San’ya the protest style, regular patrol,and, sometime later, collective food preparation and serving. The team cap-italized on what social organization existed in the encampment to beginthese regular activities as well as collective application for welfare. Beforethe eviction, homeless people in the encampment engaged in forms ofmutual help from sheer survival needs (S. Honda 1997). As Dordick (1997)observed in New York and Snow and Anderson (1993) in Austin, Texas,environmental constraints make it very hard for the homeless to developtrustful, long-lasting relationships. Also, theft and violence occasionallyoccur among them. The same applied to the encampment in West Shinjuku(Mitsu 1995). Yet, in the encampment, some small groups had emerged tohelp each other with food and confiscation watch (Asahi, December 3,1993; S. Honda 1997; Morikawa 1994a; Nakamura 1993). Homeless peo-ple in the encampment were also aware of frequent deaths on the street,and they at least called an ambulance or sought help at a nearby police boxwhen someone seemed seriously sick or injured. Regular food serving,patrols and visits to the welfare office were in one sense an extension ofthese forms of mutual help (Shinjuku Renraku Kai 1997).

And collective protests and regular activities corresponded to whathomeless people in West Shinjuku wanted most. That is, more than anything



else, they wanted to save the station area as a place to live. As I mentionedelsewhere, this area was very attractive to the homeless in search of food,jobs, and roofed sleeping space. According to a survey conducted by theCoalition in 1994 (Shinjuku Renraku Kai 1995: 14), about 70 percent ofthe 210 homeless respondents in West Shinjuku wanted jobs and the major-ity of them searched employment through labor recruiters at the station,labor exchanges elsewhere, and/or yoseba in Takadano Baba. Moreover,many homeless persons had established their own routes of securing food—routes which they would lose if they vacated the place for too long(Morikawa 1994b). Further, many believed that space for them wasdecreasing in central Tokyo as small evictions and confiscations werebecoming rampant. Thus, losing the encampment space posed a significantthreat to the homeless in West Shinjuku. The patrol team knew it, and itprioritized the maintenance of the encampment when it organized protestsand regular activities.

Thus, the activists from San’ya acted on the important concernsamong the homeless by drawing on familiar repertoires of protest and regu-lar activities in San’ya and by appropriating social organization of thehomeless in the station area. And, in doing so, they further reframed issues,identities, and actors—other crucial components of the mobilizationprocess (McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly 2001). Specifically, they reframed“vagrants” as “laborers” forced to sleep rough because of insufficient pub-lic welfare and employment. In a similar vein, they framed the TMG’s“environmental improvement work” as “beating out of the homeless,”coupled by a “foreclosure,” as a “criminal act” by public officials on thelaborers who had sacrificed their lives for Japan’s postwar prosperity. Inflyers, San’ya’s patrollers proclaimed:4

We are not an environmental hazard to be treated like garbage buthuman beings. Many of us labored to build JR Shinjuku station andthe TMG buildings. We are entitled to a minimum guarantee of workand life. What the metropolitan and local governments must do,therefore, is to perform their duty, not to steal our belongings like athief. The reason why they call us lazy vagrants is because they wantto deflect our attention from their inability to provide enoughemployment and welfare. They want to hide us because our veryexistence signifies their failure to do so. It thus only pleases them ifwe keep quiet and blame ourselves. But no such luck! Indeed, theirgreatest failure is that they invited our counter-attack. Let us declarewith pride that we are laborers sleeping rough in Shinjuku. Justice ison our side!



Such reframing resonated with many homeless persons’ self-identityand understanding of SWG and TMG officials.5 It boosted other homelesspersons’ identity and helped them externalize responsibility. The signifi-cance of the latter comes from the fact that the homeless in Shinjuku, liketheir US counterparts (Liebow 1993; Snow and Anderson 1993), were sub-ject to repeated degrading and demeaning rituals that occurred on the streetand at institutions surrounding them. Homeless people in Shinjuku wereconstantly reminded by passersby, welfare workers, and policemen thatthey were social failures whose predicament was traced to their own defectsand whose existence deserved punishment or no attention.6 Against thisbackdrop, the patrol team’s framing of the homeless as “workers sleepingrough” received a favorable response from a number of homeless people(Morikawa 1994b).

The Shibuya group is notably absent from the forgoing examinationof the mobilization process. This does not mean that the group did little inthe station area. On the contrary, from early on, the group organized aweekly collective kitchen and street meeting in which several dozen home-less persons constantly participated (Mitsu 1995). The group, as well ashomeless participants, also recognized that SWG and TMG officials wereto blame (ibid.). Yet, the group played little part in the emergence of themovement because it did not mobilize the participants for direct protest orjoin the series of such protests organized by the patrol team. Why didn’t thegroup mobilize the homeless for direct protest?

The answer lies in the group’s repertoire of contention. As I men-tioned before, for the Shibuya group, the homeless issue was part ofbroader gender-race-class oppression. And it thought that, to fight withsuch oppression, homeless and other people experiencing it should buildsolidarity with “citizens” through discussion. These ideas were not wrong,but they did not accompany the knowledge of the utility of direct collectiveprotest and of ways to actually conduct it. The group was more experi-enced in and adept at mobilization of famous social critics and newscastersfor demonstrative performances, such as holding a symposium on Shibuya’smain street (Mitsu 1995). Accordingly, in the Shinjuku station area, thegroup sponsored regular activities to draw citizens’ attention and participa-tion and to build collective identity among the activists, the homeless, andcitizens (including progressive Diet members and unionized governmentemployees) through a series of discussion and consciousness raising ses-sions (ibid.).

This isolated the concrete needs and concerns among the homeless inWest Shinjuku and helped them identify differences rather than similaritiesbetween them and other parties, including the activists. This also isolated



the activists from the discovery or framing of potential opportunities whichcould have been cultivated in such a way as to connect specific grievancesamong the homeless to collective action. The patrol team, for example,found an elite cleavage by tapping welfare managers in other wards. It dis-covered that many welfare managers were critical of the way in which Shin-juku’s welfare office used the temporary shelter in Ota Ward (Kasai 1999).The team took advantage of the cleavage when it organized homeless peo-ple to protest at the local welfare office and to demand regular welfareinstead of temporary sheltering.

As I showed above, many homeless people were already angry andthey knew why they were angry. If Piven and Cloward (1979) are correct inarguing that the moment of madness among lower-stratum people is usu-ally short-lived and what activists can and should do is to make most of themoment to help them gain as much as possible, then discussion, organizedby the group from Shibuya, should have at least been tied to action. This isnot to deny the significance of collective identity building through discus-sion. As I will suggest in Chapter 6, lack of substantive discussion betweenthe Coalition leaders and the homeless contributed to the decline of themovement in Tokyo. In fact, such discussion rarely took place withinSan’ya’s patrol team. Admittedly, the only thing patrollers shared was theorientation toward action rather than discussion (Kasai 1999). Therefore,the early development of the movement worked to the advantage of thepatrol team.

The Shibuya group shortly admitted its shortcomings. The occasioncame in late May when one of the most enthusiastic homeless participantsmurdered another homeless man who was causing much trouble in the sta-tion area. The group understood that the murder occurred because it didnot organize collective action based on the concrete needs of the con-stituency (Mitsu 1995). As local authorities tried to use the murder toundermine the emerging movement, the group decided to work with thepatrol team (Morikawa 1994b). The team agreed, and the two groups helda joint meeting in the station area. In the meeting, the two groups promisedto join their force to create a movement for the benefit of the aggrieved onthe basis of the interests of the aggrieved (Kasai 1999; Mitsu 1995; Shin-juku Renraku Kai 1997).7

In mid-July this promise crystallized in the first major rally anddemonstration of the homeless in Tokyo—a rally and demonstrationplanned and prepared jointly by the homeless in the West Shinjukuencampment and activists from San’ya and Shibuya. Nearly 200 “com-rades” in Shinjuku, San’ya, and Kamagasaki as well as their supportersparticipated in the event. In the morning, the homeless handed out flyers to



TMG employees and, in the afternoon, they marched with their collabora-tors along the valley of Shinjuku’s skyscrapers toward the TMG complex,holding up placards some of which claimed “We Are Not Garbage!” Asthey marched, the homeless called loudly for jobs, welfare, and a ban oneviction. Some made speeches as they walked along. The long line of poorlyclothed middle-aged and older men demonstrating energetically and some-times even humorously drew both public and media attention (Asahi, July13, 1994; Tokyo, July 13, 1994). Tilly (1999) uses the notion of WUNC (orworthiness, unity, number, and commitment) to gauge the strength of col-lective action. This protest event, strong in all these dimensions, was one ofthe most solidaristic collective action events in the history of the movementin Tokyo.8

The decision to collaborate also crystallized in the formation inAugust 1994 of the Shinjuku Coalition—a coalition of committed activistsfrom San’ya and Shibuya and homeless persons in West Shinjuku who hadalways been with the patrol team in protest and regular activities. With theinception of the Shinjuku Coalition, Takai and Harada left San’ya’s patrolteam, and a few key members of the Shibuya group, including Irino, shiftedtheir weight to the homeless movement in Shinjuku. These non-homelessactivists formed the leadership of the Coalition.

The purpose of creating the Shinjuku Coalition was to start a full-scale struggle with the SWG and TMG to win public guarantee of employ-ment and livelihood for all homeless people in Shinjuku (Kasai 1999). ByAugust 1994, protestors in West Shinjuku had successfully terminated con-fiscations by the Construction Bureau of the TMG. Moreover, the TMGand twenty-three wards had formed a joint TMG-Wards Review Commis-sion on Street Dwellers to devise a homeless policy in Tokyo. As Blau(1987) has argued in his study on New York’s homeless policy, the state isnot a neutral arbiter but has interests of its own. Like its counterpart inNew York, the interest of the TMG lay in minimizing the cost of maintain-ing the homeless by offering temporary shelters while maximizing their useby keeping employable ones connected to the labor market. The Coalitionplanned to counter the coming policy of the TMG-Wards Review Commis-sion with its own policy suggestion—a suggestion based on the needs andwants of the aggrieved, not those of polity members.

The foregoing review of the initial mobilization process indicates thatTakai, Harada, and other activists from San’ya quickly formed close rela-tions with the homeless in West Shinjuku, and together these two sets ofactors stood in opposition to public officials. This contrasts to the experi-ence of homeless people and their supporters in San Jose, where it tooklonger than a year for them to nurture close ties before they occupied



vacant buildings to draw concessions from city authorities (T. Wright1997). I argue that one major reason why quick solidarity building waspossible in Tokyo lay in the eviction and persistent confiscation by theTMG. In San Jose, city authorities (or other potential targets of action) didnot initiate the kind of action which invites transgressive action from thehomeless and their collaborators. Thus, the action of the state can pro-foundly affect the timing of movement emergence.

But why did the TMG take a drastic measure toward the particularencampment in West Shinjuku? By the time this encampment emerged,homelessness had spread along the JR Yamanote loop line in central Tokyoand some noticeable encampments had emerged in other parts of the city(Ashizaki 1993; Jinmin Patorôru Han 1993). The TMG did not attempt tosweep these encampments. My analysis is that the station area was veryconvenient for the homeless and this threatened local business interestssince the space the encampment occupied is one of the busiest and most vis-ible functional spaces in Tokyo. This easily raised questions about theaccountability of the TMG, whose headquarters are located near theencampment. Equally important, the TMG had a pending road improve-ment plan for West Shinjuku, which it reinforced especially after it movedto West Shinjuku (JFBA 2002). Indeed, as the following two chapters willshow, the TMG continued to have an unusual degree of concern about thisparticular encampment. Tokyo’s homeless policy virtually revolved aroundthe homeless settlement in West Shinjuku, always with a hint of forced evic-tion.

TRIPARTITE RELATIONS AND OPERATIONAL GOALS

As I showed in the preceding section, brokerage by the activists fromSan’ya not only brought the homeless in West Shinjuku into direct con-frontation with public officials but also brought the activists closer to thehomeless. Before the TMG evicted the homeless, the two parties had onlylimited contact with each other. Therefore, the members hardly knew thehomeless in the encampment (Committee for Anti-Unemployment Struggle1994). However, as the activists organized regular activities and a series ofprotests against the eviction and as homeless people in the encampmentpositively responded to them, the parties developed solidaristic relationswith each other.

Although the Shibuya group first had difficulty in developing soli-daristic relations with the homeless, after it joined the formation of theShinjuku Coalition and shifted its weight to the homeless movement in thelocale, activists were able to form better relations with the aggrieved. In



fact, the homeless and the Coalition leadership maintained close relationsand the two parties maintained antagonistic relations with public officialsfor the rest of the initial period of the movement. It was because their tar-gets continued to frame and treat homeless protestors as threats to publicorder rather than legitimate claimants of rights. They often mobilizedpolicemen, security guards, and/or riot police to show that the homelesswere unwelcome guests. This treatment of homeless protestors as threats toorder or potential criminals exacerbated the challengers. And since theCoalition was denied mass negotiations and communal maintenance, thesetwo became the operational goals of the group in the initial period of themovement.

After the Coalition formed, it found three main occasions to interactwith the SWG and TMG in pursuit of public guarantee of employment andlivelihood. The first occasion came in the fall of 1994 when the TMG-Wards Review Commission released a policy outline (see Appendix D).This policy outline was characterized by an emphasis on emergency meas-ures for the homeless and lack of concerns about employment (Sakurai1996). Moreover, the emergency measures were ill planned. Most impor-tantly, as the major emergency measure, the outline suggested the openingof a few winter shelters, with at least one of them designed for aged/invalidhomeless men recognized as entitled to regular welfare. Yet, the commis-sion had no plan as to what to do with those men when the shelter(s) closedexcept sending some of them to a rehab center (Metropolitan GovernmentCourant, October 7, 1994)

Thus, in fall 1994, the Coalition planned to struggle with the SWGand TMG with its own counter-proposal, which stressed long-termemployment and welfare measures for the homeless in Shinjuku. The Coali-tion began with the SWG. On one day, with about 100 homeless men,including some from San’ya and Shibuya,9 the Coalition met with SWGofficials to negotiate a counter-proposal (Shinjuku Renraku Kai 1995).During the talks, however, the officials fudged the counter-proposal andterminated the session on the ground that they had received verbal com-plaints from the homeless for their “insincere attitude.” The representativeofficial literally ran away, saying that the SWG would never sit for massnegotiations again. When the homeless and their collaborators came out ofWard Hall, they found regular and riot police standing firm (ibid.). All thisenraged the challengers, and the Coalition began to struggle for theresumption of mass negotiations with the SWG.

The second occasion came several weeks later when the TMG andtwenty-three wards, in line with the policy outline, began preparing a cou-ple of winter shelters. One would be in Shinjuku Ward, which was for



aged/invalid homeless men and in effect targeted the homeless in the WestShinjuku encampment. The other would be in Ota Ward to shelter able-bodied homeless men in Tokyo, each for a couple of weeks. This time, theCoalition sent a letter to shelter program managers, requesting year-roundoperation of the winter shelters under the joint management of welfare offi-cials, homeless users, and their collaborating groups (Letter of Requestdated October 18, 1994). The letter also demanded the introduction ofemployment, housing, and other programs into the shelters. Yet, the Coali-tion received no response.

Third, since the operation of the Ota shelter was very lax, a couple ofhomeless men died without medical attention. To protest the deaths and toopen the way for mass negotiations with TMG officials, when the Ota shel-ter closed in March 1995, the Coalition, along with the San’ya League,mobilized some 100 homeless people and went to the Welfare Bureau at theTMG that was in charge of the winter shelter system. However, in front ofthe Bureau, the protestors found the glass door firmly locked, plainclothes-men taking their pictures, and TMG employees laughing jeeringly behindthe door (Shinjuku Renraku Kai 1997). Some of the protestors also realizedsecurity guards hitting a San’ya veteran activist on the other side of theglass door. Protestors then broke in to rescue him. Inside the Bureau, a wel-fare official apologized for the misbehavior on the part of TMG employees,including the security guards, and promised to negotiate with the groups inthe future. Yet, the police shortly arrested four protestors. Moreover, theWelfare Bureau later rejected a mass meeting. It agreed to meet a few timesonly with several non-homeless activists and advocates from Shinjuku andSan’ya (ibid. 1995). Again, the Shinjuku Coalition began struggling for theright to mass negotiations.

The struggle to win mass negotiations with the SWG and TMGlargely failed because the Coalition could secure regular mass meetings onlywith the SWG’s welfare office. Moreover, in the summer of 1995, the groupfaced a major attack by the TMG. The TMG, especially its constructionbranch, once again became eager to clean up the station area in exchangefor a temporary shelter program (Kasai 1999; Shinjuku Renraku Kai1997). The Coalition then launched a large-scale anti-eviction campaign,demanding a ban on eviction and direct talks with the homeless in theencampment (S. Honda 1997). The group hence sought communal protec-tion in addition to mass negotiations.

Thus, the SWG and TMG continued to respond in such a way as tomaintain the solidaristic relations between the homeless and non-homelessactivists as well as the antagonistic relations between the two parties andthemselves. Since their targets rejected mass negotiations and the maintenance



of the encampment, the realization of mass negotiations and communalprotection became the Coalition’s operational goals. How were the specifictripartite relations related to the overriding goal of achieving public guar-antee of employment and livelihood as well as the operational goals? Iargue that the tripartite relations shaped these goals so as to serve the inter-ests of both the Coalition leadership and the mass base as opposed to theinterests of their targets, which were to minimize the cost of maintainingthe homeless population while maximizing its use by keeping employableones connected to the labor market.

As I mentioned in the first section of this chapter, Takai and Haradawere already oriented to employment and welfare issues among the home-less when they patrolled in and around San’ya. In San’ya, employmentopportunities were shrinking and regular welfare withdrawn despite theshrinkage. Because there was little hope for the homeless to get decent jobsin the formal labor market, the activists thought of public jobs and regularwelfare. In fact, albeit limited in scale, the TMG offered a public employ-ment program to the day laborers in San’ya as a part of the broader“San’ya policy” of the TMG, which was a product of frequent riotingamong the day laborers in the 1960s. Takai and Harada were interested inseeing a similar program operating for the homeless in Shinjuku. They werealso interested in making regular welfare more accessible for them.

Further, the Coalition leadership was interested in maintaining theencampment in Shinjuku. At the beginning, Takai and Harada were notsure if the homeless in the encampment would respond positively to theirorganizing efforts. Therefore, while they did prioritize spatial maintenancewhen they began to mix with the homeless, it was based on the recognitionthat there was good reason for the homeless to prefer the particular place.By the time they formed the Shinjuku Coalition with the homeless, how-ever, the encampment had become their new movement base. As such, theleaders were interested in maintaining it.

The homeless in West Shinjuku (or elsewhere in Tokyo) were mostinterested in the preservation of familiar and convenient encampmentspace. Yet, few among them expected to live on the streets for the rest oftheir lives (S. Honda 1997). The idea about space among the homeless wassimilar to that among some of the homeless Cress and Snow (2000) studiedin the United States. According to Cress and Snow, the homeless said (ibid.:16): “What else can we do? If they boot us out, where are we going to go?This is all we have. We can’t let the city take it from us without giving usanother place to stay!” For the homeless in West Shinjuku, the survival ofthe encampment was very important because it provided a place to sleepunder a roof and from which to seek food and jobs, all in the absence of a



workable, long-term homeless policy. Settling in groups also enabled themto protect themselves from danger and engage in mutual help albeit limitedin degree. Unless government secured “another place to stay” off the streetsand provided the means to maintain that place, the homeless would notgive up the encampment.

The means to maintain “another place to stay” off the streets were,specifically, public jobs and regular welfare. While the majority of thehomeless in Shinjuku (or, again, elsewhere in Tokyo) wanted jobs (Iwata2000; Shinjuku Renraku Kai 1995), as they knew from experience, privatefirms, except inferior construction firms, would not hire middle-aged andolder men, especially when they had no fixed address. Public guarantee ofjobs was, therefore, an attractive part of the overriding goal. In addition,while homeless people usually did not seek regular welfare unless theyreally had to, when they did apply for it, they were easily turned down, aswere their counterparts in San’ya. The reasons, not stipulated in the Liveli-hood Protection Law, included the lack of residential affiliation and notbeing aged/invalid enough (Fujii 1997; Inaba 1997).10 The goal of seekingregular welfare in addition to public employment, therefore, fit the experi-ence and interests of the homeless in Shinjuku.

What about the operational goal of achieving mass negotiations? Theleaders of the Coalition, in particular, Takai and Harada, were interested inreviving a mass movement, involving the emerging homeless population.Therefore, “mass” involvement in the policy-making process was a must.And, as Takai admitted in an interview, “we activists would be just ignoredif we go and try to meet officials without accompanying the homeless forwhatever purpose at hand.” Hence, they considered mass negotiations as aprecondition for achieving the overriding goal. Homeless people in Shin-juku were also interested in getting involved in the policy-making processbecause, as one of my interviewees put it, “those bureaucrats up there havelittle idea about what it takes for us down here to find employment.”Homeless people knew that, unless they push collectively, “bureaucrats”would do as little as possible to meet their needs. In addition, homelesspeople sought talks because, once again, their targets treated them asthreats to public order rather than legitimate claimants of rights.

In sum, the tripartite relations in the initial period was characterizedby close, solidaristic relations between the homeless and their collaboratorson one hand, and antagonistic relations between the two parties and publicofficials on the other. These relations shaped the overriding as well as oper-ational goals of the Shinjuku Coalition. Consistent with these relations, thegoals served the interests of both the homeless and the Coalition leadershipas opposed to the interests of the local and metropolitan governments.



TACTICAL CHOICES AND GAINS

Social movement researchers studying challengers’ movements generallyagree that, as long as political access is closed, disruptive tactics work bet-ter than institutional ones such as voting and lobbying (e.g., Gamson 1975;McAdam 1982, 1983; Piven and Cloward 1979). Disruption is “simply theapplication of a negative sanction, the withdrawal of a crucial contributionon which others depend, and it is therefore a natural resource for exertingpower over others” (Piven and Cloward 1979: 24). This argument is con-sistent with much of the experience among lower-stratum movements inrecent years (e.g., Cress 1993; Cress and Snow 2000; Hirsch 1993; Wagnerand Cohen 1991).

The argument is consistent also with the movement under study. Tac-tics used by the Shinjuku Coalition in the entire movement period can beclassified broadly into three categories: (1) disruptive, direct action tactics;(2) non-institutional but acceptable tactics (e.g., registered outdoor ralliesand demonstrations); and (3) institutional tactics. In the initial period ofthe movement, the Coalition used all of these types of tactics, but reliedmuch more on the disruptive type than on the more acceptable ones and,by doing so, realized a number of collective benefits.

Yet, the Coalition hardly achieved public guarantee of employmentand livelihood for all homeless people in Shinjuku. Instead, as I havealready mentioned, since its targets rejected mass negotiations andattempted to evict the homeless again, the Coalition’s operational goalsbecame mass negotiations and communal protection. Furthermore, thegroup succeeded in realizing regular mass bargaining only with the localwelfare office. The large-scale anti-eviction campaign did not mark thebeginning of mass negotiations with TMG officials or ensure the survival ofthe community in West Shinjuku. Instead, the TMG swept the encampmentaway in January 1996. It did so despite the fact that the Coalition used dis-ruptive tactics most of the time in the initial period of the movement.

How do we account for the poor performance? According toMcAdam (1982), a combination of reform goals and disruptive tactics islikely to lead to success since it brings opportunities to some elites—oppor-tunities to realize their own interests. Polity members ignore the challenginggroup when it combines reform goals with institutional tactics, and theyrepress it when it combines radical goals with disruptive tactics. None ofthese statements, taken literally, applies to the case in Tokyo. Public guar-antee of employment and livelihood among the homeless is hardly a revolu-tionary goal, precipitating the overthrow of a political regime. Even thoughthe Coalition used disruptive tactics to try to achieve that goal, it failed.



A closer look at reform goals, including operational goals, indicates,however, that goals differ in degree of change proposed. Literature onlocalized homeless movements in the United States indicates that movementgroups in the country have usually pursued outcomes which are more mod-est than the Coalition’s. None of the SMOs Cress and Snow (2000) investi-gated pursued public guarantee of employment and welfare for all homelesspeople in the locale, which would require major legislative and administra-tive rearrangements. In other cases (Wagner and Cohen 1991; T.Wright1995, 1997), collective benefits were usually pursued for homeless peoplein specific encampments. Thus, the official goal of the Coalition in Shin-juku was more demanding than other reform goals for similar populationsin the United States. Besides, I argue that the Coalition met stronger oppo-sition from public officials and local businesses because of the location ofits base. An example from Kamagasaki illustrates the point. While the Shin-juku Coalition failed to win a public job program for the homeless from theSWG, the Kama Coalition won just such a program from the Osaka CityGovernment, albeit for a small number of homeless persons in the Kama-gasaki area (T. Honda 2001). The Kama Coalition used disruptive tacticsto achieve this outcome (ibid.). Yet, the group met less opposition frompublic officials and local businesses because both were interested in revital-izing the specific neighborhood. In particular, local businesses, comprisedlargely by flophouse owners, turned to the growing homeless population toearn income by, for example, renovating the entire structure in apartmentstyle in an effort to house homeless persons on welfare (Tsûhan Seikatsu,January 11, 2003).

In contrast, in Shinjuku, “local businesses” largely consisted of majordevelopers and building owners, who benefited little by the rising homelesspopulation in their neighborhood. In general, in Tokyo, as in New York(Blau 1992), directly or indirectly, businesses exerted particularly stronginfluence on homeless policy. Thus, as in New York in the 1980s (Blau1987, 1992), the TMG emphasized emergency measures such as the provi-sion of temporary shelters in order to minimize the cost of maintaining thehomeless population while maximizing its use by allowing able-bodied mento retain connection to the private labor market. This emphasis on tempo-rary measures applied at the national level (Iwata 2000), but I argue thatthe tendency was pronounced in Tokyo.

In sum, the Shinjuku Coalition, despite its use of disruptive tactics,did not realize the official goal because it represented an economicallycostly and politically untenable reform goal. This does not mean, however,that the Coalition brought no benefit to the local homeless population. Onthe contrary, the group in the initial period used disruptive tactics most



often among other types of tactics and produced a number of collectivebenefits. Indeed, in the initial period, as compared to the subsequent peri-ods, the Coalition exerted considerable power. In what follows, I trace thetactical choices that the Coalition made and show what gains the groupdelivered to the homeless in Shinjuku and beyond.

In the initial mobilization process, Takai, Harada, and the homelessin West Shinjuku used disruptive tactics all the time. They launched a seriesof unregistered demonstrations and made a series of sudden visits to vari-ous sections of the local and metropolitan governments to protest the evic-tion, confiscations, and temporary sheltering. When the ConstructionBureau of the TMG tried to shut off the protestors, they sat in for three anda half hours in front of the Bureau and forced a construction manager torespond (Flyer dated May 19, 1994). In addition, homeless people in theencampment began chasing out confiscators when they came to the stationarea (S. Honda 1997; Kasai 1999). On May Day, 180 homeless peoplejoined an unregistered rally in the same area (Committee for Anti-Unem-ployment Struggle 1994). With these unexpected developments, in May1994, the TMG stopped confiscation completely. Further, in July, the Envi-ronmental Clean-Up Conference stopped harassing the homeless once andfor all (Kasai 1999).

After the Coalition formed in August and failed in its first endeavor tohave mass negotiations with the SWG over policy, “intensive action” fol-lowed. “Intensive action” meant daily action against a specific target(s)which lasted a week or slightly longer. It was characterized by on-the-spotconsensus and action mobilization (Shinjuku Renraku Kai 1997). Duringthese actions, Takai and Harada stayed in the encampment with the home-less (ibid.). In the first “intensive action,” the Coalition mobilized homelesspeople to accuse face-to-face the representative official who cut off thenegotiation and ran away. They also appeared in the assembly to directlyprotest against the Ward Chief,11 and spread protest flyers to hundreds ofShinjuku government employees.

The Coalition then delivered to the SWG a letter requesting the resump-tion of mass talks, but it was turned down on the spot (Shinjuku Renraku Kai1995). Soon after that, in October 1994, the Coalition also sent a letter ofrequest to the local welfare office and other public agencies in charge of thewinter shelters, demanding year-round operation of the shelters under thejoint management of relevant officials, homeless persons, and their support-ers, as well as the introduction of employment, housing and welfare programsinto the shelters. No one answered this letter, however (ibid.).

While these written requests were ignored, disruptive collective actiontargeting independent sections did tend to bring collective benefits. Thus, at



the end of 1994 when the local welfare office set up a tent in West Shinjukuto solicit winter shelter users, the Coalition mobilized homeless people todirectly press for mass negotiations over the unanswered letter of request.The protestors threatened to withdraw participation in the winter shelterprogram if the welfare office did not accept mass negotiations. After sometense verbal confrontation, the welfare manager, present at the tent, toldthe protestors that the welfare office would have mass negotiations withthe aggrieved (Morikawa 1994b). Subsequent negotiations led to the intro-duction in the shelters of small but important services to facilitate searchfor private employment (Shinjuku Renraku Kai 1995).12

The Coalition also targeted the environmental section of the SWG,which housed the Environmental Clean-Up Conference for the Shinjuku Sta-tion Area, and through direct action, succeeded in making the manager con-firm that the SWG would never “beat out” the homeless in West Shinjukuagain (Shinjuku Renraku Kai 1997). At the same time, for the first time since1980, the conference removed the term “clean-up” from its name and offi-cially erased “people of no fixed address” from the list of environmental haz-ards subject to elimination (ibid.). Thus, at least at the local governmentlevel, the homeless issue shifted from a matter of environment to that of pol-icy for the homeless. In November 1994, the Coalition put its key demands(jobs, welfare, mass negotiations, and no eviction) into a petition and submit-ted it to the ward assembly. It launched another “intensive action” to moni-tor the handling of the petition. The petition was turned down.

In the 1994–95 winter season, the Coalition staged its first WinterStruggle, and closely monitored the development of the winter shelters inShinjuku and Ota Wards. As already mentioned, a couple of homeless mendied in the Ota shelter and, in March 1995, the Coalition and the San’yaLeague launched “intensive action” and mobilized about 100 homelesspeople for a joint protest at the Welfare Bureau of the TMG. For them, itwas an important chance to open the way for mass negotiations over publicguarantee of employment and welfare (Flyer before March 15, 1995), sincethe TMG usually did not allow “collective negotiations” on its premises.13

By mobilizing the police and allowing them to arrest four protestors, how-ever, the TMG succeeded in debilitating the Coalition for a few months.14

Thus, to press for negotiation, the Coalition, the San’ya League, and San’yafor Solidarity with Shinjuku15 turned to signature-collecting drives. Forsome time, the Coalition could not do much except collect signatures fromthe homeless from all over Shinjuku and bring them to the TMG. Needlessto say, these drives did not persuade the TMG into mass negotiations.

Then in September 1995, the Coalition started what turned out tobe the largest and most disruptive protest campaign in the history of the



movement under study. The campaign drew in numerous movement groupsfrom Tokyo and other parts of Japan, including members of the NationalFederation of Day Laborers’ Leagues. It was also joined by individuals andorganizations well beyond the familiar movement communities. Until itended in repression on January 24, 1996, the Coalition and homeless peo-ple engaged in sit-ins, hunger strikes, blockade, and a number of unregis-tered rallies and demonstrations. These actions, a product of interactionswith TMG officials and other opponents, culminated in a major clash thatoccurred on January 24 between the challengers and TMG officials—a bat-tle to which many homeless people I met continued to refer proudly as“1.24.”

The Coalition began mobilization immediately after it learned thatthe TMG was planning to disband the encampment in October 1995 byconstructing moving walkways (or horizontal escalators) on the under-ground passages and putting the evictees in a temporary shelter (Flyerdated September 3, 1995). Behind the move were the TMG’s desire to pro-ceed with its redevelopment plan in West Shinjuku and the pressure fromlocal business associations to erase homelessness in the locale (JFBA 2002;Kasai 1999). The TMG, especially its construction branch, as well as thebusiness associations had wanted to eliminate the encampment since itemerged in the early 1990s.

During the anti-eviction campaign, the Coalition launched three“intensive actions.” First, in September 1995, the group made a round ofvisits to all organizations that the TMG would require to carry out its planin an effort to persuade them not to cooperate with the TMG (Kasai 1999;Yamakara, November 6, 1995). The Coalition succeeded in this endeavor.Second, in October, after Governor Aoshima, who had just replacedSuzuki, said in a press conference that the TMG would go ahead with theplan, the Coalition made another round of visits to the possible collabora-tors in the plan for the same purpose. The Coalition succeeded again. Thegroup also staged sit-ins in the TMG lobby to protest a remark the gover-nor made during the press conference: “We are trying to introduce jobs tothem [homeless people], offer them temporary housing, and cure their ill-nesses, but they tell us to leave them alone. They seem to have a unique phi-losophy of life” (Asahi, October 21, 1995).

The TMG could not start constructing moving walkways in timebecause it failed to gain internal consensus (Metropolitan GovernmentCourant, December 15, 1995). The Coalition began the third “intensiveaction” in November 1995 to enlarge the ongoing struggle by seeking moreallies in the existing movement network. To gain allies, the group andhomeless people in Shinjuku joined a major labor dispute involving day



laborers’ unions across Japan.16 In December 1995, the TMG announcedthat it was unilaterally enforcing the plan in January 1996 by opening atwo-month shelter for homeless evictees (ibid.). Homeless people in theencampment agreed to “fight till the end,” physically blocking the destruc-tion of the “Cardboard Village” if that was necessary (Shinjuku RenrakuKai 1997).

In mid-January 1996, Governor Aoshima admitted in a press confer-ence that the TMG would use force to remove the homeless from theencampment (Asahi, January 20, 1996). Later, the Coalition leader faxed aletter to the TMG, suggesting consensual resolution, but it was rejected(Kasai 1999). Then the protestors built barricades on the passage and,behind them, about 200 homeless people and their allies sat, linking armswith each other (Shinjuku Renraku Kai 1997). By this time, “comrades”had arrived from Kamagasaki and other parts of Japan to join the final bat-tle. On January 24, the TMG mobilized 200 of its employees, 400 securityguards, and 250 police, including those in full riot gear, to remove the bar-ricades and the protestors (Asahi Evening News, January 24, 1996;Mainichi, January 24, 1996; The Japan Times, January 25, 1996).

They soon succeeded—after bearing some physical resistance by theprotestors.17 Moreover, the police arrested Takai and Harada behind thebarricades. Yet, the Coalition in Shinjuku, by continuously mobilizing afew dozen to a couple of hundred homeless people who would risk arrestfor a cause, attracted the attention of a group of social workers outsideShinjuku.18 They not only participated in the battle in West Shinjuku butalso continued their support by providing the homeless with practicalknowledge on welfare. The anti-eviction campaign also attracted muchmedia attention. News reporters were sympathetic with homeless protes-tors and helped them in the final battle by getting and offering informationon every move of metropolitan officials that they could catch. More impor-tantly, the battle with the TMG, broadcasted live in Japan and reportedwidely by foreign journalists, helped publicize the homeless problem topeople who had little idea on it.

In sum, in its initial period, the movement in Tokyo, by adoptingunruly, direct action tactics, achieved: an encampment space free of evic-tions, confiscations, and exclusionary patrols, much to the satisfaction ofhomeless people in West Shinjuku; issue transformation on the local level;acceptance by the welfare office as a regular negotiator; small but signifi-cant changes in the winter shelter program; a long-term ally capable ofoffering the homeless knowledge useful for survival; and broad issue recog-nition through the media. In addition, the Coalition helped the homelessgain better designations. Instead of “vagrants” and “people with no fixed



address”—expressions usually associated with criminals in Japan—thehomeless population began to be called “street dwellers” in all governmentpublications and “people who sleep rough” more generally.19 Seeing orexperiencing homeless people’s collective protests against exclusion andlack of employment, opponents as well as the public at large could nolonger apply the label “lazy vagrants” to the homeless, at least in public.

Finally, it should be noted that, while regular welfare was never guar-anteed to the homeless in Shinjuku, they gained much easier access to it. Aswe saw in the first section, homeless individuals in Shinjuku often soughtservices at the local welfare offices. Yet, collective application for welfareand other emergency services meant that a few dozen “comrades” werebehind each applicant, ready to protest on the spot if maltreated or rejectedby a welfare worker. And collective protest did happen very frequently,even routinely (Inaba 1997; Morikawa 1994b). Thus, both first-timerswith little knowledge on welfare and old-timers who had “abused” servicesnow had better chances of getting the needed services. In addition, home-less persons who eschewed public assistance found it easier to apply whenit was done as collective action.20

SUMMARY

In Tokyo, a homeless movement emerged in West Shinjuku in early 1994when the TMG evicted a large number of homeless persons who hadformed an encampment in one of the most visible functional spaces in thecity. The movement emerged in West Shinjuku because, unlike encamp-ments in other parts of Tokyo, the one that emerged there posed a threat tothe TMG and large firms. The TMG, pressured by local business interestsand its own redevelopment plan in West Shinjuku, stepped into a drasticaction, and it invited non-homeless activists from San’ya into the stationarea, willing and ready to organize the homeless beyond the district. Wellbefore the eviction, the homeless and public officials in Shinjuku had begunconflicting interaction, yet, it was only after brokerage by the activists thatthe interaction became transgressive.

Brokerage not only brought the homeless into direct confrontationwith the officials but also created a communal sense of the struggle asSan’ya’s activists appropriated the existing social organization among thehomeless and introduced to the encampment regular activities in San’ya,which homeless people in crisis could easily emulate to strengthen their sol-idarity. The full-hearted action mobilization by the activists as well as theirvisible spatial and temporal commitment also helped develop solidaristicrelations between the activists and the homeless. Solidaristic relations



between the two parties and their antagonistic relations with public offi-cials led to goals that reflected common interests between the aggrieved andtheir allies as opposed to those of the polity members. Thus, public guaran-tee of employment and livelihood became the challengers’ goal and massnegotiations and communal protection became their operational goals. Toachieve these goals, the Coalition used direct action tactics throughout theinitial period of the movement, and by doing so, the group brought a num-ber of collective benefits to the homeless in Shinjuku and sometimesbeyond, including periodical negotiations with the local welfare office, agreater access to the livelihood protection program, a secure encampment,and a wide public recognition of the homeless issue.

The initial mobilization process in Tokyo indicates that the state playsa crucial role in movement emergence. In Tokyo, by taking a drastic actionand by continuing contentious interaction with the challengers, the TMGhelped form a movement. The mobilization process also indicates that whatcount as resources for the aggrieved are not pecuniary ones collected fromanonymous sympathizers and other tangible ones that can be easilyexchanged, but intangible ones, such as anger, belief in a cause, strong com-mitment, and knowledge of disruptive tactics. The assembling of theseresources helped bring fruitful results to the homeless, although they werefar short of public guarantee of employment and livelihood.



Chapter Five

The Transitional Period of the Move-ment (January 1996–October 1997)

This chapter looks into the transitional period of the movement in Tokyo.The period begins with repression by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government(TMG) and lasts until certification by its welfare branch. Repressiondenotes “efforts to suppress either contentious acts or groups and organiza-tions responsible for them” (McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly 2001: 69). InTokyo, repression occurred in the initial period of the movement when theTMG mobilized the police to arrest four of the protestors who sought massnegotiations with welfare officials. Yet, the single largest repression in thehistory of the movement took place on January 24, 1996, in a clashbetween the TMG and anti-eviction protestors in West Shinjuku.

Repression changed the dominant mode of relations among thehomeless, the Shinjuku Coalition leadership, and their targets so as to marka new phase of the movement. The initial period of the movement wascharacterized by solidaristic relations between the leadership and the home-less and antagonistic relations between the two parties and public officials.In the transitional period, both the solidaristic and antagonistic relationsloosened. Repression by the TMG rearranged the initial tripartite relationsby separating the key leaders of the Coalition from the homeless for aneight-month period, drastically limiting the space available for the homelessin the station area, and depriving the Coalition of direct access to TMGofficials. In the transitional period, the Coalition continued to pursue massnegotiations and communal protection. Since the group had won regularnegotiations with the local welfare office, it shifted its attention to the real-ization of mass negotiations with the TMG. The Coalition upheld the oper-ational goal of communal protection as the Construction Bureau of theTMG and local businesses harassed the homeless in the station area with

97


exclusionary practices. Consistent with the tripartite relations, however,goal orientations began to show signs of divergence between the homelessand the Coalition leadership. Whereas the homeless continued to prioritizespatial maintenance in the absence of a workable policy, the leadershipbecame more and more interested in policy to get the homeless off thestreets. Thus, the neat overlapping of interests between the two parties fal-tered.

The dominant mode of tripartite relations in the transitional periodaffected tactics and gains as well. In contrast to the initial period through-out which the Coalition used unruly, disruptive tactics, in the transitionalperiod, the group rarely used these tactics and resorted to institutional andacceptable non-institutional tactics. As a result, the homeless lost or weak-ened some of the collective benefits that had been achieved in the initialperiod. Most importantly, they lost an encampment free of exclusionarypractices. Toward the end of the period, the relations between the homelessand the Coalition leaders improved as the TMG threatened the homelesswith another plan to evict and shelter them. The leaders recognized it as anopportunity to win mass negotiations with the TMG. Only then did theCoalition use disruptive tactics. The use of disruptive tactics helped thegroup achieve occasional mass talks with the Welfare Bureau of the TMGwithout another forced eviction in West Shinjuku.

AFTER THE 1.24 CLASH

Since homelessness rose sharply in Japan, exclusionary practices against theaggrieved have never disappeared (Resource Center for Homeless HumanRights 2001). Yet, the largest and most forceful exclusionary actionremains the eviction en masse of 200–250 homeless people in the encamp-ment in West Shinjuku, Tokyo—an action which the TMG took on January24, 1996. The action was not only exclusionary but also repressive in thatit accompanied explicit efforts by the TMG and the police to destroy themovement group and undermine further mobilization among the homeless.The police forcefully removed sit-in protestors from the station area andarrested Takai, Harada, and three other protestors (Hiyatoi Zenkyô News,April 20, 1996). The TMG then closed the space that was occupied by thehomeless to install moving walkways (or horizontal escalators).

Immediately after the eviction, in the station area, TMG officials didthree things. First, they urged the homeless who remained in the area into atwo-month shelter in Minato Ward (Shinjuku Renraku Kai 1997). Second,they attempted to legitimate their action by telling media reporters thatthey had refused only mass negotiations with the protestors, not all kinds



of talk (Mainichi, January 24, 1996). Third, the Construction Bureau of theTMG tried to eliminate homelessness from the station area by placing artobjects on the passages so that homeless people would not create anencampment again (Asahi, January 25, 1996).

The persuasion, legitimation, and elimination efforts all failed, how-ever. Only a few dozen homeless men agreed, often reluctantly, to enter theMinato shelter, although the TMG had spent as much as 200 million yen tocontain 200 homeless men for two months (Asahi, January 24, 1996;Mainichi, January 24, 1996). Most of the homeless did not go to the shelterbecause they did not trust the TMG and preferred the street. The TMGhad, after all, violently evicted them, which deepened homeless people’s dis-trust in TMG officials. Further, the two-month shelter was not promising inany sense. Because the TMG unilaterally prepared the shelter withoutcooperating with welfare offices in Tokyo, there was little prospect for thehomeless to be able to secure regular welfare through the shelter as theysometimes did through winter shelters. In addition, the shelter was to helpthe homeless seek full-time jobs in the private labor market, which wasonly unrealistic given their age, current housing status, and the depressedeconomy. For the majority of the homeless, therefore, remaining in the sta-tion area was a surer way to survival.

The TMG’s attempt at legitimation failed since Japan’s major newspa-pers were sympathetic with homeless protestors and critical of the TMG.Asahi (January 24, 1996) reported the clash under the title “‘My Home’Disappeared in Shinjuku: Forceful Solution to Homelessness.” It carried aneditorial entitled “Be Warmer, Mr. Aoshima” (January 25, 1996) and thecolumn entitled “Mr. Aoshima, You Were Too Violent” (January 27,1996). Mainichi (January 24, 1996) titled its report on the clash “AfterHigh Growth and A Bubble—A Sad Seclusion of Roadblockers.” Criticismof the TMG’s action came also from a number of other professional peopleand organizations. Among them were Satoshi Kamata (Mainichi, January24, 1996), a well-known journalist and social critic, and Susumu Kurasawa(Asahi, February 9, 1996), a senior urban sociologist who helped the TMGprepare its first report on homelessness (Planning and Coordination Office,TMG 1995).

Finally, despite the effort to eliminate homelessness from the stationarea, the Shinjuku Coalition secured a small space in the concoursebetween JR Shinjuku station and the underground passages, and created anew Cardboard Village in the space. Moreover, the Coalition, now led byIrino and assisted by the San’ya League and San’ya for Solidarity with Shin-juku, soon resumed regular activities, such as patrol, food service, and col-lective application of welfare. Further, the Coalition and the groups in

The Transitional Period of the Movement 99


San’ya began a series of collective protests against the TMG over the forcedeviction and temporary sheltering of the homeless in West Shinjuku.

Repression did, however, undermine the movement in Tokyo. First,the Coalition faced difficulty in recreating a safe, cohesive community. Fol-lowing the eviction, many homeless people rushed to the small space in theconcourse in an effort to continue to stay in the station area. Other home-less people joined anew as they were attracted to the area. The Coalitionwelcomed these newcomers as well as returnees from the controversial shel-ter in Minato Ward. Thus, the number of homeless people in the concourserose rapidly. It reached 260 by mid-March (Shinjuku Renraku Kai 1997).Overcrowding, however, generated much room for noise, theft, and infight-ing. As one of the newcomers recalled, “It was just like a panic” (RenrakuKai Tsûshin, October 1, 1996).

Second, the condition was exacerbated by the revival of exclusionaryforces in the station area. Local business associations, long interested inerasing homelessness in West Shinjuku, petitioned at the TMG against theemerging encampment. Keio Railway Shinjuku station, next to JR’s, closeda space for some 50 homeless persons in its vicinity (Flyers dated February11 and March 1, 1996). Slightly later, the police confiscated a stack ofcardboards that homeless persons had saved in the station area (Flyer datedMarch 27, 1996). Furthermore, passersby began abusing homeless individ-uals more frequently (Flyer dated February 23, 1996).

Third, the TMG reinforced its exclusionary and repressive action.While the TMG had always tried to exclude homeless protestors from itspremises, it now completely shut the door so that homeless protestorscould not even enter the buildings (Metropolitan Government Courant,January 30, 1996). To block their access to the buildings, the TMG mobi-lized security guards, who picketed at the entrance of the buildings. Fur-thermore, the police began to arrest homeless protestors with less hesitationthan before. Hence, although the Coalition and their collaborators fromSan’ya began their counter-attack soon after the clash, they could onlymarch to the TMG for the purposes of accusation. In February, too, theycould only march around the town and hold a press conference to expressdissatisfaction with the Aoshima administration (Flyer dated February 11,1996).

Following the indictment of Takai and Harada, the Coalition held aprotest rally in the new Cardboard Village and another gathering, indoor,to express their determination to keep fighting with the TMG (Flyer datedFebruary 25, 1996). In March, the Coalition and the groups in San’ya man-aged to enter the TMG headquarters to accuse the forced eviction and tem-porary sheltering of the homeless in West Shinjuku. Yet, all their target



offices—the Planning and Coordination Office, the Welfare Bureau, theLabor and Economic Affairs Bureau, and the Governor’s Office—blockedoff the protestors at the entrance by mobilizing the police. The policearrested two protestors, heavily injuring one of them (Flyer dated March15, 1996). The challengers’ counter-attack ended with a peaceful May Daydemonstration during which delegates submitted to the Governor’s Officesignatures calling for mass negotiations. By this time, the police hadarrested at least several homeless protestors.

Why did the police continue to repress the challengers? Researchers ofsocial movements writing about “protest policing” (della Porta and Reiter1998) note that while the police in modern democratic societies have gener-ally become “softer” in dealing with peaceful demonstrations, they con-tinue to apply forces “even without regard for their correspondence withdemocratic rights” (ibid.: 29) if demands come from the governmentbecause the government has the power to do so (Waddington 1998). Whilethis applies to the case in Tokyo, why did the TMG keep mobilizing thepolice to begin with? The TMG did so because it feared a possible retalia-tion from the homeless for what the TMG had done to them—a retaliatoryaction which might be as violent as the TMG’s forced eviction (Metropoli-tan Government Courant, January 30, 1996). It contrasts well with thefinal period of the movement in which the Coalition was never repressedbecause the TMG recognized the group as a safe pressure group.1

TRIPARTITE RELATIONS

In the initial period of the movement, brokerage by San’ya activists led toclose relations between the homeless and the activists against commonopponents. In the transitional period, while the leaders of the ShinjukuCoalition and homeless people dealt with common targets, their solidaristicrelations weakened, and so did the antagonistic relations between the chal-lengers and the targets. How and why did repression rearrange the tripar-tite relations this way? Repression deprived the Coalition of direct access toTMG officials, drastically narrowed the space for the homeless, and physi-cally separated the key leaders of the Coalition from the homeless for aslong as eight months.

As I mentioned in the previous section, after the TMG swept away theold encampment on an underground passage, it shut off the Coalition atthe entrance to the buildings. Throughout the transitional period, the TMGmobilized the police and security guards to keep off the group. The virtualexclusion of the Coalition from direct contact with TMG officials created avacuum between the group and its targets and loosened their antagonistic



relations. For, as we saw in Chapter 4, these relations depended to a largeextent on the TMG’s outright challenge to the Coalition and the homelessas well as on direct, confrontational interaction between TMG officials andthe protestors. As Piven and Cloward (1979: 20–21) argue, lower-stratumpeople do not direct anger to those elites who are out of their reach, even ifthese elites are responsible for their plight. It is their concrete, clearly per-ceivable grievances that define enemies and targets of anger. Hence, theTMG’s shutting off of protestors from the buildings as well as moderateoffense in the station area resulted in withering away of antagonismbetween the TMG and the challengers.

Repression weakened not only the antagonistic relations between theCoalition and its targets but also the solidaristic relations between thehomeless and the leadership by physically separating Takai and Haradafrom the homeless for eight months. While Takai and Harada stayed in theTokyo Detention Center, homeless people from the old village visited themto express solidarity and concerns. After the trial began in mid-1996, theyalso went to the court to support the leaders and their earlier struggle.2 Thismeant, however, that the main locus of struggle for the leaders shifted fromthe street to the court.3 Equally important, their long absence from WestShinjuku meant that the proportion of the homeless who had little or noidea about the key leaders of the Coalition increased.

Movement groups working with the homeless are not like corporateunions, which are based on clear membership bound by institutionalizedunion rules and obligations. These unions do not have to rely on the con-stant presence of leadership or interaction with targets to assure solidaristicrelations between leadership and members. As researchers of homelessmovements in the United States have observed (Cress 1993; T. Wright1997), however, trustful, solidaristic relations between the aggrieved andtheir collaborators are built through collective action and/or the constantphysical presence of the collaborators. This observation was valid inTokyo, too. As the preceding chapter showed, activists from San’ya wontrust from, and built solidarity with, the homeless in West Shinjuku byspending much time with the aggrieved and organizing a number of collec-tive protests targeting public agencies. As such, the long physical separationbetween the key leaders and the homeless in the new encampment wasdetrimental to the relations between the two.

This weakening of the two-party relations progressed when Takai andHarada finally returned to West Shinjuku to rejoin the movement in Sep-tember 1996. The deterioration in their relations was deeply associatedwith major spatial rearrangements that repression introduced to the stationarea. As an increasing number of social movement studies note, space plays



an important role in movements whether as a strategic choice (Wilton andCranford 2002), a facilitator of collective identity building (T. Wright1997), a strategizing site, or a symbol of state control (Hirsch 1993). Thesestudies indicate that repression can involve changing spatial arrangementsto the disadvantage of movement groups. In Tokyo, repression drasticallynarrowed space available for the homeless in the station area. In the initialperiod of the movement, the Coalition conducted its movement-relatedactivities such as food service, meetings, and rallies outside the encamp-ment, in the space where the new encampment stood. Narrowing of spacemeant that these activities now overlapped with the living space of thehomeless. This created tension because, as was always the case, not all ofthe homeless were interested in participating in the movement.

Moreover, the location of the new encampment was problematic sinceit stood in the midst of space consumers used. The old Cardboard Villagewas on one of the underground passages used roughly by 200,000–300,000commuters a day (Asahi Evening News, January 24, 1996), but theencampment had grown linearly along the passage, in a narrow spacewhich was not used by pedestrians. Further, the old village was behindplant boxes which served as a shade. As a close observer of the old villagehas written (Asahi, January 27, 1996), “there was this nice, tacit recogni-tion of co-existence between the homeless and passersby, each refrainingfrom intruding on the other.” Now that the new village stood in the con-course and nothing shielded cardboard shacks from the public eye, harass-ment increased by passersby. Passersby, for example, kicked cardboardshacks, threw lighted cigarettes into them, stole the belongings of homelesspersons, and physically attacked them (Kitagawa 2001).4

This condition was exacerbated by lack of a substantive homelesspolicy in Tokyo. In the initial period, the homeless policy largely consistedof a winter shelter program which offered two shelters in Ota and Shin-juku Wards, from December to March. In the transitional period, nothingwas added to this program although the number of homeless people keptincreasing in Shinjuku and elsewhere in the city and it was becomingincreasingly difficult for them to find jobs in the construction industry(Kitagawa 2001). In the absence of an effective long-term homeless policyand direct confrontation with TMG officials, confrontation tended tooccur among homeless individuals, including the Coalition’s regulars.From the beginning, the new village suffered internal problems such astheft and infighting. The condition worsened as time passed. Theft, vio-lence, heavy drinking, and infighting occurred frequently. These sometimesoccurred in the old village, too, but they were now rampant and visible(Yamaguchi 1997).5



At the same time, as a survival strategy, many homeless people in theencampment formed small groups and engaged in division of labor to solvethe problems of food, work, and shelter (Yamaguchi 1997). While this sortof grouping was not rare in the old village and not all groups in the new vil-lage were problematic, as grouping progressed, inter-group competitionover work and shelter intensified (ibid.). In particular, a couple of groupsthat sold used magazines on the street constantly fought with each otherover turf (Kitagawa 2001).6 These groups had relatively clear boundariesand made strong claims on their living and workplace niches. Internally, thegroups operated on the basis of strict master-follower relations where themaster dominated all his men (and women). One of the masters admittedlyused violence on a daily basis to sanction his men (ibid.). Furthermore, themagazine venders’ group led by this master occasionally quarreled with theCoalition’s regulars who lived in the same encampment (Yamaguchi 1997).As Olzak and Shanahan (1996) have found in their study of recent ethnicconflict, spatial overlapping of groups experiencing contraction of jobopportunities because of demographic pressures induces competition andconflict among those groups. This phenomenon was replicated in WestShinjuku.

Thus, when Takai and Harada came back to the station area, theyfound an encampment which was not exactly the same as the one theyknew. Instead of helping each other, homeless individuals and groups werealways fighting. Some of them violently excluded others to assure their ownsurvival (Flyer dated January 5, 1997). Moreover, Takai, who began to stayin the encampment, experienced occasional harassment by some of thenewer groups, which had emerged while he was away.7 In particular, theaforementioned magazine venders’ group ruled by a violent boss was hos-tile to the Coalition leadership. The group boss, drunk, sometimes cut intothe street meeting of the Coalition chaired by the leaders. For these groups,especially their bosses, the Coalition’s key leaders represented major intrud-ers into their life and threats to their established power within the encamp-ment.

These developments certainly did not please Takai and Harada, whohad poured so much time and energy in spatial maintenance and communalgrowth in West Shinjuku. Takai and Harada did try to improve the condi-tion of the new village, but, in the absence of major opportunities for mobi-lization as well as ties to homeless people who joined the encampmentanew, they could not exert the influence they once had. Harada was capa-ble of defying elites, based on strong belief in justice. He was adept at bothaction and consensus mobilization. He knew how to articulate grievancesamong the homeless by using the kind of language that made sense to the



aggrieved.8 He also knew how to make powerful speeches which made peo-ple listen. In fact, Harada played the leading role in mobilizing the home-less for gainful protests in the initial period. For these qualities and hisclear-cut but sensitive character, a number of homeless men respectedHarada, although he was much younger than them.9 Yet, opportunities haddissipated for him to demonstrate these abilities and gain trust and respectfrom the majority of the homeless constituency.

Takai did not have these qualities, but he had spent a longer timethan any other activist with the homeless in West Shinjuku and developedpersonal ties with a number of homeless individuals. Because Takai stayedin the old village as a resident (Kasai 1999), homeless people used to con-sult him when small disputes occurred, for example, over stealing. In suchcases, Takai mediated homeless persons in conflict and conciliated dis-putes in a way that satisfied each party.10 In other words, Takai not onlymobilized the homeless in West Shinjuku for collective action but alsofacilitated day-to-day operation of the village life. Takai lost this advan-tage while he was absent from West Shinjuku for eight months and anti-Coalition groups gained strength in the encampment during his absence.Anti-Coalition groups had their own means of survival and solving inter-nal problems. Hence, Takai became increasingly useless for the homelessin West Shinjuku.

OPERATIONAL GOALS

The ongoing tripartite relations affected the Coalition’s goals by encourag-ing the leadership to emphasize policy to get the homeless off the street. Inthe transitional period, the Coalition retained the overriding goal of achiev-ing public guarantee of employment and livelihood. It also retained theoperational goal of realizing mass negotiations, since the group had notachieved mass talks with any section of the TMG while it had begun regulartalks with the local welfare office. The group further retained the opera-tional goal of communal protection since exclusionary practices proliferatedin the station area. After the police and Keio Railway conducted confisca-tion and eviction, respectively, the Construction Bureau of the TMG beganbimonthly cleaning of the entire station area in an effort to eliminate asmany homeless dwellers as possible. Also, local businesses hired privatesecurity guards to harass the homeless in the encampment—a practice theCoalition had never experienced before (S. Honda 1998b).

Yet, in the transitional period of the movement, a shift occurred in theoperational goals of the Coalition. The group, especially its leadership,shifted its attention from spatial maintenance to a new operational goal,



namely, the achievement of light jobs and interim housing for the homelessin Shinjuku. As I mentioned above, by the time Takai and Harada returnedto the station area, the new village had grown out of their control.Although the leaders did not totally lose interest in maintaining theencampment, its value as a movement base declined. Therefore, the Coali-tion leadership redirected the movement from communal protection to apublic measure for housing and employing the homeless.

Toward the end of the transitional period, the TMG planned a tenta-tive facility targeting the homeless in West Shinjuku—a facility similar tothe two-month Minato shelter, which was used to eliminate the old villageand temporarily contain the homeless without welfare, employment, orhousing measures. This plan threatened the homeless in the new village,since it signified a possible loss of the encampment space in West Shinjuku.For the Coalition leadership, the plan was dissatisfactory because it lackedmeasures to help the homeless get off the streets. The leadership thus begana campaign to oppose the plan, hoping to realize mass negotiations withthe TMG over the new operational goal of winning light jobs and interimhousing. The homeless, beyond internal cleavages, responded positively tothe campaign for the fear of losing the space they occupied. The two partiesonce again assembled their resources and, as I will show in the section ontactics and gains, fought the TMG with disruptive tactics. As a result, theywon mass negotiations with the Welfare Bureau of the TMG withoutanother major eviction. Yet, it was the last time the parties demonstratedcohesion for, following the Bureau’s certification of the Coalition, theirrelations became diffuse and detached irreversibly.

In what follows, I trace how the Shinjuku Coalition interacted withits targets in the period under discussion, in order to show how repressionaffected the way in which the group interacted with its targets and how theaforementioned goal shift occurred.

CHALLENGER-TARGET INTERACTION

In the transitional period, the Shinjuku Coalition found four main occasions tointeract with the TMG and Shinjuku Ward Government (SWG). The firstoccasion arrived in mid-1996 when the TMG-Wards Review Commissionreleased a policy package for the homeless in Tokyo. For the most part, thepolicy package was an elaboration of the earlier policy outline, which was lit-tle more than an aggregation of emergency measures. Yet, the package differedfrom the outline in stressing a long-term solution to the problem of homeless-ness and singling out a “self-sustenance support center” program for that purpose. The program was designed for able-bodied homeless men willing



and ready to work full-time. These men were expected to find jobs whilestaying for a few months in year-round support centers. The TMG plannedto open five such centers in Tokyo, each with a capacity of 50 to 200 men(Asahi, June 26, 1996; Tokyo, June 26, 1996).

The Coalition as well as the groups in San’ya opposed this programfor two reasons. First, since the TMG modeled the program after the two-month shelter in Minato Ward (Metropolitan Government Courant,August 30, 1996), it meant that another eviction was coming with no priortalk with the homeless (Flyer dated December 1, 1996; Yamakara Novem-ber 1, 1996). It also meant that the program would fail because of lack ofemployment measures (Renraku Kai Tsûshin, October 1, 1996). Besidesfilling less than half the capacity, the Minato shelter served homeless userspoorly. Although the TMG boasted to have helped 70 percent of the home-less in the shelter find jobs, it did so by sending them to inferior laborcamps through labor exchanges (Flyer dated March 10, 1996; HiyatoiZenkyô News, April 20, 1996). As a result, many returned to the streets.11

Second, since the program was only for able-bodied homeless men, itwould create a major cleavage among the homeless on the basis of the abil-ity and willingness to work as defined by the TMG (Flyer dated December1, 1996; Yamakara, November 1, 1996).

As such, the movement groups in Tokyo sought the suspension of thesupport center program and the reconceptualization of policy through jointmeetings among the homeless and SWG and TMG officials (Flyer datedJuly 14, 1996). The groups also planned to devise their own counter-pro-posal for future negotiations. In June 1996, to demand program suspensionand joint meetings, the groups mobilized 40 homeless men in Shinjuku andSan’ya. They targeted the Ward Chiefs’ Conference instead of the TMG,since they were denied access to the latter and the conference was to decideif the support center program should be implemented. This endeavor failed,however, as the police repressed the participants (Yamakara, September 30,1996). Although the groups planned to struggle with the ward and metro-politan governments with a counter-proposal (Flyer dated July 30, 1996),they also gave it up partly because of continuing repression and partlybecause they found that the conference was reluctant to endorse the sup-port center program.

The Coalition sought its second occasion in November 1996 whenthe group had a mass negotiation with the local welfare office for specialwinter relief. By this time, Takai and Harada had come back to the stationarea. To the welfare office, the Coalition requested, in addition to relief andregular welfare for all homeless men in need, disbanding of the new villagethrough cooperation with the Coalition and homeless representatives of the



village (Letter of Request dated November 15, 1996 in Flyer dated Novem-ber 17, 1996). Although the homeless in West Shinjuku recognized that theencampment was not in good shape, few of them wanted its complete reso-lution. The demand for dismantling of the new village, therefore, repre-sented the leaders’ demand and reflected their shift in interest fromcommunal protection to policy to get the homeless off the streets. The wel-fare office rejected all these demands except winter relief.

The Coalition then worked on a counter-proposal that would workbetter than the support center program. Takai concluded that “after all, thestreet is not a place for people to live,” and feared that the new village, nowin a “terminal condition,” might end up in “a slum of despair” if the pres-ent condition continued (Shinjuku Danbôru-mura Tsûshin, March 30,1997). To devise a proposal, the leadership encouraged the homeless to dis-cuss policy to get themselves off the streets. Thus, on January 24, 1997, oneyear after the “1.24” struggle, the leadership invited the homeless in Shin-juku to a hall to “quietly discuss life after the village” rather than toexpress any kind of determination in the memory of the anti-eviction strug-gle (Flyer dated January 19, 1997). The leadership further began a weeklymeeting in a church building to discuss policy—a meeting open only tothose homeless who were interested in policy.

After discussion, the Coalition set the operational goal of seekingpublic provision of light work (such as cleaning public parks) and interimhousing for the homeless in Shinjuku. With this operational goal, the Coali-tion planned to battle with the SWG and TMG. In March 1997, when theWinter Struggle ended and the shelters in Ota and Shinjuku Wards closed,the Coalition began to pursue light jobs and interim housing by targetingthe SWG. Although the Coalition staged “intensive actions,” they made lit-tle progress toward that goal, since the actions were weak. This constitutedthe group’s third occasion for interacting with public officials in the transi-tional period of the movement.

The fourth and final occasion came shortly thereafter. In April 1997,the Welfare Bureau of the TMG put aside the original support center pro-gram proposed by the TMG-Wards Review Commission, and unilaterallydecided to open a tentative support center in North Shinjuku—a centerspecifically targeting the homeless in West Shinjuku (Yomiuri, April 30,1997). Admittedly, this plan was motivated by the TMG’s desire to erasethe encampment in West Shinjuku (S. Honda 1998b). After the ReviewCommission announced the original program, it reorganized itself into theConference for Promoting Street Dwellers’ Policy. Yet, the conference wasslow in progress because the twenty-three wards were not interested in theprogram. They were not interested in turn because the program lacked



solid employment measures and hence efficacy, and also because the wardsdid not want to bear the financial burden of having a center in their juris-diction (Metropolitan Government Courant, August 30, 1996). Hence, theWelfare Bureau unilaterally planned a tentative support center to solvewhat it called the “West Shinjuku problem.”

The decision of the Welfare Bureau gave the Coalition leadership amajor opportunity to mobilize the homeless in West Shinjuku for the pur-pose of achieving mass negotiations with TMG officials. The Coalitionlaunched an anti-center campaign to block the Welfare Bureau’s plan toshelter the homeless in a tentative support center. By withholding coopera-tion, the Coalition tried to induce certification. The campaign lasted untilOctober 1997 when the Welfare Bureau certified the Coalition as a legiti-mate organization representing the interests of the homeless in Shinjuku.Subsequently, some homeless men joined a tentative support project.

In the transitional period, the lack of direct access to the TMG andthe weakening relations between the homeless and the Coalition leadershipallowed the group to engage in only low-key interactions with the localwelfare office except when the TMG planned a temporary facility to shelterthe homeless in West Shinjuku. Although the Welfare Bureau certified theCoalition as a legitimate organization representing the interests of thehomeless in Shinjuku, as this section showed, the interests of the homelessand those of the Coalition leadership began to show signs of divergence inthe transitional period. As we will see in the next chapter, the divergence ininterests between the two parties became decisive after certification, leadingto a decline of the movement in Tokyo.

In sum, the tripartite relations in the transitional period of the move-ment were characterized by less solidaristic relations between the homelessand non-homeless activists on the one hand, and less antagonistic relationsbetween the two parties and public officials on the other. These relationsreshaped goals such that the Shinjuku Coalition leadership shifted itsemphasis from communal protection to policy to get the homeless off thestreets. Thus, the interests of the homeless and their collaborators no longerneatly overlapped with each other. While the homeless continued to priori-tize spatial maintenance in the absence of policy that would work for them,their collaborators found policy more important than trying to recreate acommunity and maintain it in West Shinjuku.

There is nothing wrong with seeking policy to help the homeless getoff the streets. The Shinjuku Coalition formed to seek such policy in thefirst place. In fact, the operational goal of winning publicly provided lightjobs and interim housing, as it was determined through discussion amongthe homeless, at least reflected what the aggrieved considered as a little



more realistic and effective as a first step toward life off the streets than thesupport center program. Provision of light jobs would be helpful since thehomeless were often too old or physically weak to bear hard manual laborin the construction industry and since work opportunities in other indus-tries declined as the recession progressed and numerous small firms wentbankrupt. Albeit temporary, direct provision of housing would be betterthan a few-month-long stay in a shelter because it would enable a moreindependent way of life. Yet, after certification, this operational goalbecame increasingly forgotten as the emphasis on policy drove the Coali-tion leadership to prioritize the very limited support center program. Whilethe leadership planned to pursue the operational goal after the groupachieved the support center program, it unilaterally abandoned the goal asits relations with the homeless became distant and shifted its attention tonational homeless policy in response to the involvement of the central gov-ernment in the homeless issue. As such, the Coalition leaders’ shift in inter-ests in the transitional period had a major impact on the future of themovement in Tokyo. In the next section, I show how the ongoing tripartiterelations affected the Coalition’s tactical choices and gains.


In the initial period of the movement in Tokyo, the Shinjuku Coalitionsought to achieve mass negotiations and communal protection and theoverriding goal of public guarantee of employment and livelihood. Forthese purposes, the Coalition used all of the three types of tactics that Iidentified in the movement, namely, unruly, disruptive tactics, non-insti-tutional but acceptable tactics, and institutional tactics. Yet, unruly,direct action tactics dominated the period. In the transitional period, theCoalition retained the overriding goals as well as the operational goals ofmass negotiations (with TMG officials) and communal protection. Inaddition, the group began to pursue light jobs and interim housing asanother operational goal. For these purposes, the Coalition used varioustactics, but it rarely used disruptive tactics because the on-going tripar-tite relations made it difficult for the activists and the aggrieved toassemble crucial resources for transgressive mobilization. The Coalitionresorted mainly to non-institutional but acceptable tactics, such as regis-tered rallies and demonstrations, and institutional tactics, such as peti-tioning. Since we are concerned with relations among the homeless, theCoalition leadership, and their targets, in this section, I focus my atten-tion on the tactics the Coalition used after Takai and Harada came backto the movement base.



In November 1996, two months after Takai and Harada returned tothe station area, the two leaders led a mass negotiation with the local wel-fare manager. The immediate purpose of the negotiation was to securesome special winter relief because there was no such relief available in Shin-juku Ward. At the same time, the Coalition demanded regular welfare forall the needy homeless in Shinjuku and the dissolution of the West Shinjukuencampment. The former corresponded to the overriding goal of the Coali-tion, and the latter, the leadership’s shift in interest from communal protec-tion to policy to get the homeless off the streets. The Coalition summarizedthese demands in a letter and submitted it to the welfare manager (Letter ofRequest dated November 15, 1996 in Flyer dated November 17, 1996). Topress the demands, the group mobilized some homeless persons for threeseparate negotiation sessions at the welfare office. However, they onlyachieved biscuits for the winter.

After the Coalition leadership and homeless people in Shinjukuagreed to pursue light jobs and interim housing, the Coalition targeted theSWG. In March and April 1997, the group organized a couple of “intensiveactions.” Intensive action, as I mentioned in the previous chapter, entaileddaily organization of and participation in a series of direct action protestsfor a duration of a week or so. During these actions, the non-homelessactivists stayed with the homeless day and night. The intensive actions inMarch and April 1997, however, each lasted only three days and were sub-stantively weak (Flyer dated March 16, 1997). The March action consistedof the delivery of a letter of request to the secretary of the Ward Chief andvisits to a few relevant sections for direct appeal. The April action consistedof an attempt to obtain an answer to the letter of request and a march tothe winter shelter site in Shinjuku Ward. The march was to show that theCoalition was interested in having the winter shelter converted to a year-round interim housing for the homeless in Shinjuku. About 100 homelessmen joined the march (Flyer dated April 20, 1997).

The Coalition received no response to the letter of request, the directappeals, or the march. When the group sponsored an annual May Day rallyand demonstration, it sent a delegate to the TMG to hand over a list of sig-natures to the Governor’s Office, demanding light jobs and interim housingin addition to mass negotiations and a ban on eviction. Some 280 homelesspeople and their allies participated in the rally and demonstration fromShinjuku, San’ya, Shibuya, and Ueno (Shinjuku Danbôru-mura Tsûshin,May 30, 1997).

Thus, after Takai and Harada returned to West Shinjuku, the Coali-tion had a couple of occasions to interact with the SWG over policy to getthe homeless off the streets. Neither of the two, however, involved unruly,



disruptive tactics. Lack of enthusiasm was shortly reversed in late April,1997 when the Coalition found that the Welfare Bureau of the TMG side-stepped the unpopular support center program and went ahead with itsown tentative support center program to dissolve the encampment in WestShinjuku. This action brought the homeless in the new village and theCoalition leadership closer to each other because it threatened homelesspeople’s interest in preserving the encampment and gave the leaders anopportunity to begin mass negotiations with TMG officials. The two par-ties once again put together their resources and launched a campaign full ofdisruptive tactics, although, reflecting the general decline in resources, itwas far more modest than the anti-eviction campaign they staged between1995 and 1996.

The campaign began in May and lasted till October 1997. It beganwith frequent visits to a neighborhood where the TMG planned to open atentative support center. Twice a week, the Coalition, with 30 to 40 home-less persons, went to North Shinjuku to persuade the local residents not toaccept a tentative support center because it was to shelter the homelesswhom the TMG was evicting and was not meant for poor people’s welfare.The protestors marched around the neighborhood with anti-center plac-ards, distributed flyers offering up-to-date information on the progress ofthe tentative support center program, and made speeches to express opposi-tion to the program (Hiyatoi Zenkyô News, August 1, 1997). Although thenumber of homeless participants was relatively small, these actions beganto energize the movement. When the Shinjuku ward assembly turned downthe petition that the Coalition had submitted to terminate the program, thegroup held a rally and demonstration in North Shinjuku in which 170homeless people participated (Flyer dated June 15, 1997). These activitieswere received well by the local residents, since they did not want to haveanother homeless facility in their neighborhood.12

An advocacy group in San’ya supported the anti-center campaign bytaking out an advertisement in a major weekly magazine (AERA, July 14,1997)—an advertisement entitled “Mr. Aoshima, Please Protect HumanRights.” It called for workable homeless policy instead of forced eviction—policy whose details should be determined through direct dialogue with theaggrieved. The advertisement stated that continued harassment in theabsence of dialogue only complicated the issue because it blocked the wayto solution while fueling public prejudice and discrimination against theaggrieved. This was an opinion not only of the advocacy group. As theadvertisement indicated, through a total of 25 individuals, often a well-known writer, journalist, singer, poet, editor, researcher, attorney, or mem-ber of the San’ya advocacy group, about 1,200 individuals and 118



organizations had agreed on the statement across Japan (Yamakara, Sep-tember 7, 1997).

With this support coming from across the country, 120 homeless peo-ple and their allies marched to the TMG and sent delegates to the Gover-nor’s Office to turn in a joint statement from the numerous supporters aswell as a letter requesting a briefing with the potential users of the tentativesupport center (Flyer dated July 16, 1997). The TMG did not respond tothe request (Flyer dated August 6, 1997). Yet, the Welfare Bureau gave upopening a tentative support center in North Shinjuku because local opposi-tion was so strong. Instead, the Bureau planned to start a tentative support“project” in August 1997 in an existing lodging house, located in ShinjukuWard. On August 25, welfare officials would set up a tent in the stationarea to solicit homeless men who would become “self-sustained” throughthis project (TMG 1997).

The Coalition then went to the neighborhood in which the lodginghouse was located. The group informed the neighborhood of the “secretproject” of the Welfare Bureau in an effort to raise opposition. The groupalso directly protested at the lodging house. On August 25, the Coalitionleaders and 70 homeless people waited for welfare officials to come to thestation area, and successfully blocked their attempt at solicitation ofhomeless applicants for the support project (Yamakara, September 7,1997). Subsequently, the Coalition requested the Welfare Bureau to offer aprior explanation to the homeless if it was starting the project anyway.Through a flyer, Takai in effect agreed to support the Welfare Bureau. Hewrote: “You [welfare officials at the TMG] should know by now that youwon’t succeed as long as you ignore us. If you don’t want to fail and getfired, get smarter!. . . . We don’t mind ‘supporting’ you!” (Flyer dated Sep-tember 7, 1998).

By this time, it was clear that the TMG was not evicting the homelessin West Shinjuku, since the support project turned out to be for only a cou-ple of dozen homeless men. In November 1997, recognizing that the Coali-tion’s withdrawal of cooperation would jeopardize the tentative supportproject, welfare officials at the metropolitan government finally agreed toexplain the project to homeless applicants and to have occasional talkswith the Coalition over the tentative support project.

Thus, in the transitional period, the Shinjuku Coalition rarely usedunruly, direct action tactics. McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly (2001) argue thatrepression does not necessarily deter protest and that it may even radicalizeit. More specifically, according to Opp and Roehl (1990: 521), repressiondoes not mitigate protest “if persons are exposed to repression, if repres-sion is considered illegitimate by these persons and their social environment



. . . , and if these persons are members of groups that support protest.”While this finding is based on a study of anti-nuclear protests in West Ger-many, it is consistent with the experience of the movement in Tokyo in that,immediately after the 1.24 clash, a number of homeless people, witnessingor experiencing repression, which they found illegitimate, joined a series ofrisky protests against the TMG. Some of the homeless were in fact arrestedeither in the midst of protest or after that. However, in the long run, repres-sion did deter protest. Why? It was not simply because the number ofhomeless persons who did not know the past struggle increased but becauserepression altered the relations among the aggrieved, their collaborators,and opponents as it deprived the movement group of its key leaders, directaccess to the TMG, and a rich mobilizing structure, which was receivedwell by the public. The weakening relations between the Coalition leader-ship and the homeless did not allow the two parties to use disruptive tacticsafter Takai and Harada came back to rejoin the movement. In other words,the tactical effect of repression was mediated by changing tripartite rela-tions.

By resorting to the more acceptable tactics, the Shinjuku Coalitionand homeless people, instead of achieving gains, lost or undermined someof the collective benefits that had been earned in the initial period. First,homeless people in Shinjuku lost an encampment free of confiscation,exclusionary patrols, and harassment in one of the most popular places forthe homeless in Tokyo. Although the Construction Bureau of the TMG andlocal businesses continued exclusionary practices in the station area, theCoalition never responded to them with direct protest at the TMG. Instead,the Coalition leadership encouraged self-management of the encampmentand resistance on an individual basis.13 Hence, these exclusionary practicesnever stopped.

Second, the absence of powerful protests against exclusionary prac-tices undermined two other collective benefits that had been achieved,namely, issue transformation and new designations. In the initial period ofthe movement, at least at the local government level, the challengers hadseen the homeless issue transformed from a matter of environment to thatof policy. While this achievement was not totally lost, insofar as the Con-struction Bureau persistently framed homelessness as an issue of road man-agement and as the challengers retreated from collective protest, thisachievement faded. Similarly, although designations such as “homelesslaborers” were not lost, lack of a firm stand against exclusionary practicescertainly had its effect on how people described the homeless. Passersbybegan to label the homeless as “lazy non-workers.” A number of youngmen followed the TMG in seeing the homeless as “causing trouble in public



places” (Asahi, July 23, 1996). Youth violence on homeless men increased,sometimes causing death on the part of the homeless.14

When and where they used disruptive tactics, the Coalition and home-less people achieved a major collective benefit. That is, by launching a disrup-tive campaign against the TMG’s tentative support center program, they wonacceptance by the welfare branch of the TMG as a regular negotiator. I con-sider this a collective benefit because, as we will see in the next chapter, it ledto another collective benefit (a better winter shelter system in Tokyo) as wellas a selective benefit (a few year-round support centers for a minority ofhomeless men). I emphasize that this achievement was preceded by someimprovement in the relations between the Coalition leadership and homelesspeople in West Shinjuku. As what the leadership considered as an opportu-nity converged with what homeless people took as a threat, they recognizedeach other’s worthiness, offered their resources for collective use, and formeda united front until they drove the Welfare Bureau into the corner.

It should also be emphasized that acceptance by the Welfare Bureauwas the sole benefit that the Coalition brought to the homeless in Shinjukuin the transitional period. Consistent with the dominant tripartite relationsin the period, the anti-center campaign was much less intensive and power-ful than the anti-eviction campaign. The achievement was greatly aided bythe relative lack of interest in the homeless issue among the twenty-threewards of Tokyo. Few wards supported the self-sustenance support centerprogram proposed by the TMG-Wards Review Commission, and this wasone major reason why the Welfare Bureau went ahead with its own plan toshelter the homeless in the encampment in West Shinjuku.

SUMMARY

This chapter examined the transitional period of the movement in Tokyo. Ishowed how repression by the TMG weakened the solidaristic relationsbetween the homeless and the Coalition leadership on the one hand andthe antagonistic relations between the two parties and their opponents,especially TMG officials, on the other. I argued that repression changedthe tripartite relations by depriving the Coalition of its key leaders, directaccess to the TMG, and spatial arrangements conducive to movementactivities. Lack of direct, confrontational interaction with TMG officialsundermined antagonism between the challenges and their opponents. Spa-tial rearrangements and the long absence of the key leaders weakened soli-darity between the aggrieved and their most important allies. Thechallengers’ resources such as anger, a strong commitment to a cause, andinterpersonal ties contracted.



Changes in the tripartite relations did not affect the overriding goal ofrealizing public guarantee of employment and livelihood. They did not leadto the abandonment of the operational goals of mass negotiations and com-munal protection. However, the ongoing tripartite relations brought a sub-tle shift in the interests of the Coalition leadership, which began toemphasize policy to get the homeless off the streets instead of spatial main-tenance and communal bonds. The ongoing tripartite relations also shapedtactical choices of the Coalition. Instead of relying on unruly, direct actiontactics, the Coalition resorted to institutional means of influence and non-institutional but acceptable tactics. These changes in goals and tacticsreflected the difficulty on the part of the challengers to assemble resourcesbecause of the loosening tripartite relations. The result was the loss orweakening of some of the collective benefits that had been gained in the ini-tial period of the movement. However, the Coalition added a new collectivebenefit when and where it mobilized homeless people for disruptive tactics.The Coalition, by launching a disruptive campaign, achieved acceptance bythe Welfare Bureau of the TMG as a regular negotiator.

Examination of the transitional period of the movement in Tokyosuggests that, as in movement emergence, the state plays an active role inmovement development. In the case of Tokyo, through the mechanism ofrepression, the TMG altered the tripartite relations in such a way toinduce diverging interests, modest tactics, and limited gains on the part ofthe challengers. The present examination also confirms our earlier findingthat transgressive mobilization occurs when the aggrieved and their collab-orators combine their resources. In the transitional period, it happenedwhen the TMG came up a tentative support program. Only then, the chal-lengers amassed such resources as belief in a cause, repertoire of action,and interpersonal networks so as to form a transgressive mobilization.Further, the experience of the Coalition in the period demonstrates thatrelations among the aggrieved, their allies and their targets are not staticbut can change over time as they interact among themselves—a point thatwill be even clearer in the next chapter where I examine the final period ofthe movement.



Chapter Six

The Final Period of the Movement(October 1997-mid-2002) with Summary and Conclusions

This last chapter of the book examines the final period of the movement inTokyo. I also summarize my answers to the questions that I presented in theintroductory chapter and suggest what we can learn from the movement inTokyo. I distinguish the final phase of the movement from the transitionalone by the mechanism of certification. Broadly, certification entails “thevalidation of actors, their performances, and their claims by externalauthorities” (McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly 2001: 121). In Tokyo, certifica-tion came in October 1997 when the Welfare Bureau of the Tokyo Metro-politan Government (TMG) validated the Shinjuku Coalition’s demand forpolicy, recognized the group as a legitimate representative of the localhomeless population, and agreed to talk with the aggrieved about the self-sustenance support project. Following certification, the Coalition, fourother movement groups in Tokyo, and homeless people in the city began tohave occasional talks with metropolitan welfare officials in a facility out-side the TMG complex.

The final period is much longer than the previous two, which lastedone and a half to two years. The final period stretches over nearly fiveyears. During the years, changes occurred in the scale of the movementunder study. First, it scaled up to the city level as the movement groups inTokyo forged an alliance to demand the implementation of the support cen-ter program, or the key component of the homeless policy in Tokyo thathad been proposed by the TMG-Wards Review Commission on StreetDwellers. None of the groups was satisfied with this program, but they rec-ognized that they were not powerful enough to win fundamental policy

117


immediately. The groups, therefore, decided to collaborate to realize thesupport center program and then seek light jobs and interim housing inrelation to the centers. After a few such centers seemed ready to openshortly, the groups further attempted to scale up the movement to thenational level as the Japanese government began to work on the homelessissue.

Throughout the final period of the movement, however, the domi-nant mode of tripartite relations remained the same. In the transitionalperiod, relations among the homeless, the Coalition leadership, and theiropponents weakened. Following certification, the tripartite relationsaltered again so that the relations between the homeless and the leader-ship became decidedly distant while those between the leadership andpublic officials (and legislators) became closer. Certification by the Wel-fare Bureau induced these changes by bringing the Coalition leadershipinto frequent contact with metropolitan welfare officials as well asnational government officials and legislators without substantive partici-pation by the homeless.

Consistent with the realignment of the tripartite relations, changestook place in the operational goals of the Coalition. While the homelesscontinued to prioritize spatial maintenance, the Coalition leadershipabandoned communal protection and focused its attention solely on pol-icy. The leadership first poured all its energy left in a campaign to openyear-round support centers in Tokyo and then, instead of seeking publicprovision of light jobs and interim housing, pursued a homeless assis-tance act and a workable national homeless policy, even though fewhomeless people in Shinjuku were enthusiastic about these endeavors.Ultimately, the Coalition abandoned the overriding goal of achievingpublic guarantee of employment and livelihood as the group becameincreasingly constrained by the existing policy framework, whichemphasized individual, rather than collective, effort at becoming “self-sustained.”

The ongoing tripartite relations ruled out the use of disruptive, directaction tactics. Throughout the final period, the Coalition, along with othermovement groups in Tokyo, relied on institutional and acceptable non-institutional tactics. As a result, while the certified status enabled the Coali-tion to help produce a few support centers in central Tokyo, it took as longas three years to do so. Moreover, since these centers served only a smallsegment of the homeless population in Shinjuku and elsewhere in Tokyo,they hardly constituted a collective benefit. In the meantime, homeless peo-ple achieved a collective benefit by negotiating directly with their own tar-gets, but the benefit remained small.



FROM CERTIFICATION TO THE ALLIANCE OF THEHOMELESS IN TOKYO

In October 1997, the Welfare Bureau of the TMG agreed with the ShinjukuCoalition to offer a prior explanation of the self-sustenance support projectto the homeless in the West Shinjuku encampment. The explanation wasgiven in the station area by welfare officials who came to the site to solicitapplicants to the project. The officials assured the Coalition that the pur-pose of the project was not to evict the homeless but to lend support tothose among them who were interested in getting off the streets throughpublic means. The officials also promised that the project would take careof unsuccessful job seekers without throwing them back to the streets, as itoccurred at the Minato shelter (Flyer dated October 15, 1997; ShinjukuRenraku Kai Newsletter, November 24, 1997). Further, the Welfare Bureaurecognized the Coalition as a legitimate organization representing thehomeless population in Shinjuku, and granted the group occasional massmeetings in the future.

The explanation was brief, lasting less than half an hour, and the self-sustenance support project was small in scale, accepting only 25 homelessmen in a couple of private lodging houses in Tokyo (Flyer dated October12, 1997). Nevertheless, certification was a significant achievement forboth the homeless and the Coalition leadership. The homeless were pleasedbecause the project was not accompanied by another eviction. They couldmaintain the encampment in West Shinjuku. In addition, the homeless werenow entitled to express their opinion with regard to policy. Previously,homeless people were at best ignored and at worst repressed when theytried to break into the decision-making process at the TMG. Now, theywere granted access to welfare officials to seek substantive policy improve-ments without fear of losing space in West Shinjuku.

For the leaders, certification was significant because it advanced theirinterest in policy to get the homeless off the streets. While the Coalitionleaders opposed the tentative support program that hinted eviction, it didnot mean that they had a special interest in maintaining the encampment.As I showed in the preceding chapter, the leadership took advantage of thethreat that the program posed to the homeless in West Shinjuku to open theway for mass negotiations with TMG officials. Certification enhanced thepossibility of facilitating policy progress. The Coalition leadership believedthat the support center program, long put off due to the persistent opposi-tion from the twenty-three wards, might eventually become an issue, sincethe number of homeless people kept increasing in various parts of Tokyoand since the Welfare Bureau retained some interest in the program. The

The Final Period of the Movement 119


leadership wanted to relate itself to the process of policy development,eventually to introduce light jobs and interim housing into the support cen-ter program.

While elite patronage is often said to lead to co-optation (e.g., Cressand Snow 1996; Piven and Cloward 1979), certification may work to theadvantage of challengers. McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly (2001: 107–123)show, for instance, how certification of anti-Marcos insurgents by thePhilippine Catholic Church facilitated the success of the Yellow revolutionin the Philippines during the 1980s. In Tokyo, certification by the WelfareBureau of the TMG was a mixed blessing because it drove a wedge betweenthe homeless and the Coalition leadership while granting both parties aright to insert their voice in the process of policy development. In otherwords, certification interacted with the weak, sometimes conflicting, rela-tions between the two parties so that they would take two separate ways.

Certification encouraged the homeless, especially those who workedclosely with the Coalition, to bypass the leadership and negotiate directlywith public officials and their agents who immediately affected their lives.Most notably, several homeless persons who entered the shelters in Ota andShinjuku Wards in the winter of 1997–98 formed ad hoc committees toameliorate grievances inside the shelters. They surveyed the shelter users,identified common grievances, and brought the results to the shelter super-visors and sometimes to the managing agency to protest the various defi-ciencies of the shelter system and negotiate for improvements. According tosome of the homeless persons who initiated mass moves, homeless peoplegenerally found the Coalition leadership too indifferent to their immediateneeds. The leadership, even when it recognized such needs, was too slow intaking action to make necessary changes.1 Thus, they took the occasion ofcertification to advance their interests on their own. As a result, the home-less won structures assuring more privacy and safety, a less strict curfew forjob-searching activities, and a ban on discriminatory practices by sheltersupervisors (Flyer dated May 17, 1998; Shinjuku Renraku Kai News, Janu-ary 31, 1998).

A number of studies on homelessness in the Untied States (e.g., Blau1987; Liebow 1993; Williams 1996) have drawn our attention to the vari-ous problems that homeless shelters had, from strict rules and lack of pri-vacy and safety to the very meaning of these shelters as a means to regulatelabor. The present case demonstrates that collective action can occur withinthese shelters to solve at least some of the problems. In Tokyo, however,certification limited indigenous initiatives in action and hence achievementsas it led Takai to discourage any initiative on the part of the aggrieved inorder to keep himself in control of every move of the homeless that related



to the ongoing or potential targets of the leadership. In fact, Takai activelyundermined any indigenous collective effort, and succeeded in deterring thehomeless from making any further gain through indigenous mobilization.2

While certification prompted the homeless to initiate collective actionapart from the Coalition leadership, it encouraged the leadership to culti-vate ties with metropolitan welfare officials. Throughout the 1997–98 Win-ter Struggle, the leadership focused its attention on the ongoing supportproject. With some of the homeless regulars, it frequently visited partici-pants in the project to closely monitor its development (Flyer datedNovember 2, 1997). Previously, the Coalition monitored the operation ofthe winter shelters during the Struggle. This time, the group paid focusedattention on the ongoing support project to become deeply involved in pol-icy talks with metropolitan welfare officials. When the officials began tosolicit more homeless participants in the project, the leadership volunteeredto coordinate the solicitation process (Flyer dated November 9, 1998). Thisfocus on the support project was in part responsible for the aforementionedindigenous initiative within the winter shelter system.

Thus, certification soon began to exert its effect on relations amongthe homeless, the Coalition leadership, and metropolitan welfare officials.Certification led to distant relations between the homeless and the leader-ship and closer relations between the leadership and the officials. The lead-ers’ loss of solidaristic relations with the homeless in the transitional periodand their weak interest in maintaining the new village interacted with certi-fication so as to drive the leadership to nurture ties with the officials, whoshared the interests in policy to get the homeless off the streets. The leader-ship effort was facilitated by a fire that occurred in February 1998. Thefire, which started from one of the cardboard houses, eventually killed fourhomeless persons and destroyed some 50 shacks, or one third of whatexisted in the station area at that time (Flyer dated February 15, 1998;Yamakara, April 12, 1998). Albeit too dreadful to call it an opportunity,the fire certainly enabled the leadership to strengthen ties with TMG wel-fare officials and focus on policy more smoothly than it would have beenotherwise possible (Flyer dated March 1, 1998). Hence, immediately afterthe fire, the leadership consulted representatives of the Welfare Bureau (aswell as the local welfare manager), and agreed to evacuate the station areain exchange for a couple of tentative support centers, which would be pro-vided in April 1998 as an “emergency rescue for fire victims” (Flyers datedFebruary 18 and March 29, 1998).3

At the time of the fire, the Coalition leadership persuaded the home-less in the station area to either stay in the winter shelter in Ota Ward untilthe opening of the tentative support centers or move to other streets (Flyer



dated February 11, 1998). Although the homeless preferred the station area(Yamakara, June 29, 1998), many went to the Ota shelter, as the leadershipurged them to make a quick decision (Flyer dated February 11, 1998). Inthe end, about 170 homeless men entered the Ota shelter as the WelfareBureau encouraged those outside the encampment to move to this shelter,too (Flyer dated February 18, 1998). A week after the fire, the Coalitionevacuated the station area and relocated its weekly food service and patrolbase to Central Park, located near the TMG headquarters. Upon evacua-tion, the leadership publicly applauded TMG and SWG welfare officials foroffering “the best possible measure conceivable within the current homelesspolicy framework” (Statement dated February 14, 1998), and expressed itswish to tackle various future issues with metropolitan welfare officials(Statement dated February 8, 1998).

The Welfare Bureau, after succeeding in securing a couple of tenta-tive support centers for “fire victims,” became enthusiastic about openingseveral year-round support centers as originally recommended by theTMG-Wards Review Commission on Street Dwellers (Metropolitan Gov-ernment Courant, April 10, 1998). In the spring of 1998, to help theBureau open these centers, the Coalition scaled up the movement by form-ing the Alliance of the Homeless in Tokyo with other movement groups inthe city, namely, the San’ya League, San’ya for Solidarity with Shinjuku,and the Shibuya Coalition. The Alliance was later joined by an indigenousgroup, which formed in Ikebukuro, Toshima Ward, with the help of theSan’ya League.

None of the movement groups in Tokyo liked the support center pro-gram. It was only for a small, “elite” segment of the homeless population inTokyo, willing and ready to seek full-time employment in highly competi-tive labor markets (JFBA 2002). In particular, the movement groups inSan’ya and Shibuya knew that support centers would not attract their localhomeless constituencies because most of them had jobs, no matter howmeager, and relatively secure encampment space and were not interested inthe centers. For these homeless men, entering a support center meant givingup their hard-won means of survival and dwelling space in exchange forslim chances of securing a stable job and getting off the streets permanently.

Why did the movement groups form the Alliance in Tokyo, then?Social movement organizations (SMOs) within a single movement are saidto form a coalition when resources are abundant so that inter-SMO compe-tition over resources (e.g., funding) does not occur, when the movementfaces increased political opportunities or threats, and when there are noserious identity differences between the SMOs (Van Dyke 2003: 227).These findings are usually based on analyses of national movements. While



they may apply to localized movements, at least in Tokyo, only the thirdfactor was present when the Alliance formed. Economic resources were notabundant. The movement groups in Tokyo commonly operated on a shoe-string, and the scarcity of economic resources prevented them from com-peting over this type of resources. Also, the groups did not see expandingpolitical opportunities or threats except the Coalition, which had a stake inthe support center program. The Coalition leadership decided to help theWelfare Bureau of the TMG because the support center program repre-sented an opportunity to realize a better homeless policy.

The immediate reason why the other movement groups joined theAlliance was probably “sympathy.” These groups, having been stimulatedby the successful mass mobilization in Shinjuku and/or having oftenworked with the Coalition, felt sorry when a fire broke out in the new vil-lage, destroying the movement base in West Shinjuku. These groupsexpressed their sympathy by joining the Coalition’s endeavor to continuestruggle by relating itself to the support center program. The groups alsorecognized that having support centers was better than having nothingother than winter shelters (Yamakara, June 27, 1998).

What all members of the Alliance shared was the recognition thatnone of them had the power to achieve any substantive homeless programon its own (Takai’s memo dated August 1, 1998). In addition, all groupswanted to gain larger numbers of indigenous participants in their localstruggles. This was the case especially with the groups in San’ya andShibuya, which suffered minimum mass participation in their local activi-ties, involving labor disputes and uninformed confiscations, respectively(Flyer dated July 9, 1995). They suffered minimum indigenous participa-tion in turn because, unlike in Shinjuku, the TMG and local governmentsdid not take drastic, violent measures against the challengers. In fact, inSan’ya and Shibuya, mass-leadership relations remained relatively weakthroughout the movement. This made resource combination between theaggrieved and the leadership difficult.

TRIPARTITE RELATIONS AND OPERATIONAL GOALS

In the transitional period of the movement, repression by the TMG under-mined the solidaristic relations between the homeless and the Coalitionleadership as well as the antagonistic relations between the two parties andpublic officials. After certification, the tripartite relations changed. As wesaw in the section above, certification encouraged the homeless to take aseparate route to tackle their immediate concerns while prompting theleadership to nurture ties with TMG welfare officials. What happened



immediately after certification set the dominant mode of tripartite relationsfor the rest of the final period of the movement. Specifically, certificationencouraged the Coalition leadership, especially Takai and Irino, to maxi-mize ties with political elites while minimizing those with the homeless inShinjuku.

The leadership’s cultivation of ties with polity members proceeded atthe city and national level. At both levels, goals were determined by theleadership and became increasingly dissociated from the needs and interestsof the homeless in Shinjuku. At the city level, the leadership reinforced tieswith welfare officials, first by having occasional mass talks with them overthe support center program, and second, by arranging a series of briefingswith them in which only the leadership and a few homeless persons partici-pated. Since Takai, as the representative of the Alliance in Tokyo, presentedhimself at every mass talk and briefing, he became well informed of theofficials’ efforts, limitations, and conceptualization of the support centerprogram. The officials faced serious barriers that had to be cleared beforeopening support centers—barriers stemming from the lack of interest in theprogram among ward governments and strong opposition among local res-idents to having a center in their neighborhood. Takai also came to knowthat the officials believed that support centers should not be conceptualizedas an isolated program but systematized within the existing frameworks ofwelfare, labor, and housing administrations (Memo dated August 1, 1998).

Increasingly, Takai’s major question became how the Alliance inTokyo could facilitate the Welfare Bureau to overcome the barriers and sys-tematize the homeless policy in Tokyo. In support of the Bureau’s effort atopening year-round support centers and its systemic conceptualization ofthe centers, Takai went on to suggest that the movement community inSan’ya abandon its interest in retaining and improving the existing San’yapolicy and concentrate on the homeless policy in Tokyo (Memo datedAugust 1, 1998). While the groups in San’ya rejected this suggestion, theyagreed to mobilize the homeless across Tokyo to press ward governmentsto accelerate the administrative procedures required for the opening of sup-port centers. At the same time, since no one yet had a clear picture of thesupport center program, Takai spent much time monitoring the tentativesupport centers for “fire victims,” studying their weaknesses as well astechnical issues involved in the systematization of the program, and ulti-mately making suggestions on the way the future support centers should belike (Shinjuku Renraku Kai 1999).

While the relations between the Coalition leadership and metropoli-tan welfare officials became closer than before, it does not mean that thelatter gave the former special treatment. The officials certainly treated the



leadership better than before; they no longer called the police to arresthomeless people it mobilized. Instead, the officials responded politely to thequestions asked by the leadership and the homeless during mass talks.However, the officials had their own plans and carried them out withoutinforming the leadership. For instance, although the leadership demandedparticipation in the operation of the tentative support centers for “fire vic-tims,” the officials ignored the demand and let a volunteer group partici-pate in the operation. While the leadership expected the officials to takecare of all the homeless in the centers, just before they closed, the officialsvisited the remaining homeless to solicit voluntary withdrawal from theprogram. Finally, while Takai produced a seventy-page written suggestionon the future year-round support centers, no part of the suggestion wasincorporated into the centers when they opened.

At the national level, the Coalition leadership attempted to create tieswith legislators and administrators. The involvement of the central govern-ment in the homeless issue can be traced to late 1998 when Liberal Democ-ratic Party (LDP) officials tried to secure votes in Osaka City overKamagasaki issues and the city government sought financial aid from thecentral government to solve the local homeless problem (Osaka Yomiuri,February 22, 1999). It was in early 1999, however, that the governmentofficially began to treat homelessness as a national problem, encompassingJapan’s large cities (Yomiuri, February 5, 1999). Specifically, in February1999, following Premier Obuchi’s command, a policy-making unit was setup at the Councilors’ Office on Internal Affairs within the Prime Minister’sOffice. The unit consisted of welfare, labor, construction, and police offi-cials as well as the representatives of five cities with large homeless popula-tions—Tokyo, Shinjuku, Nagoya, Osaka, Kawasaki, and Yokohama(Mainichi, May 17, 1999).

In May 1999, the policy-making unit came up with a national policyfor the homeless. It proposed different measures for different types of thehomeless: support centers for the employable; welfare for the aged and/orinvalid; and police patrol and eviction for the “socially misfit” (LiaisonConference on the Homeless Problem 1999). The city members of the unitwere not satisfied with this policy because they originally wanted legisla-tion which allowed immediate eviction of the homeless (Osaka Yomiuri,May 27, 1999).4 Yet, legislation was picked up later in fall 2000 by RengoOsaka, a local of Japan’s national center, which made its own legislativesuggestion and requested the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) to work on ahomeless assistance bill on the basis of that suggestion (Rengo Osaka1998). Accordingly, in mid-2001, the DPJ introduced a homeless assistancebill to the Lower House (DPJ 2001).



In response to these developments at the national level, the Coalitionleadership began targeting the central government in mid-2000 when theopening of three year-round support centers became certain. The leadershipattempted to create ties with national legislators and administrators inter-ested in the homeless issue through lobbying and occasional representativetalks. Takai, a strong supporter of the homeless assistance bill, in effectbecame a spokesperson of the DPJ and, at the same time, prepared his ownsuggestion on the coming homeless assistance act (Shinjuku Renraku Kai2000). The bill obliged the central government to devise a homeless policyin line with the support center program in Tokyo and to subsidize munici-pal governments which initiated such programs.

Most of the other non-homeless activists of the Alliance in Tokyo,including Harada, attempted to influence welfare and labor administrators.They did so by sending several non-homeless activists and advocates to thegovernment for talks. The delegates were particularly concerned about thenational homeless policy which explicitly proposed eviction of “sociallymisfit” homeless persons, and they tried to eliminate the possibility of evic-tions by urging welfare and labor administrators to focus on livelihood andemployment issues without getting involved in exclusionary practices. Indoing so, the non-homeless activists mobilized homeless people from acrossthe country to hold national rallies and demonstrations in Tokyo for thecommon goal of achieving public guarantee of employment and livelihoodwithout forced evictions.

While the Coalition leadership gained access to elites at the nationallevel, again, this does not mean that the leadership exerted substantiveinfluence on national figures. In fact, as the locus of struggle shifted fromthe city to the national level, the leadership faced external political interestsfar beyond their control. Takai mobilized homeless people occasionally tosupport legislators at the Diet, but his endeavor had little effect on legisla-tion. Legislation was postponed until mid-2002 first because the Dietbecame busy with the problems of BSE-infected beef and the terroristattacks in New York City, and then because the Clean Party, one of the rul-ing parties, opposed the bill on the ground that the DPJ (and the LDP) pre-pared it without consulting the party (Nishi Nihon Shinbun, November 17,2001). Thus, instead of passing the bill, the three parties jointly modified itand, in July 2002, helped the bill pass the Lower and Upper Houses.

Only in August 2002, the homeless assistance act, or the Act on Spe-cial Homeless Measures on Self-Sustenance Support and Other Matters, wasenacted, effective for 10 years. The final product, moreover, reflected nopart of the suggestion devised by Takai. If Takai had difficulty in accelerat-ing the passing of a homeless assistance bill and influencing its ingredients,



Harada and his colleagues had difficulty in building consensus amongmovement and advocacy groups across the country. While they succeededin sponsoring a few sets of national rallies and demonstrations in Tokyo,the participating groups had different movement and advocacy histories,orientations, and urgent issues to tackle at the local level. There was somepolitical struggle going on among the groups as well—a struggle stemmingfrom their past interaction with each other. Thus, Harada and others, whowere interested in enlarging the movement, could not create a nationalhomeless movement. They also had difficulty in persuading welfare andlabor administrators to work on a more effective homeless policy because,for the administrators, it was costly and conflicted with the existing welfareand labor policy frameworks.

As the time and energy of the Coalition leadership went to nationalpolicy, legislation, policy suggestion, and mobilization of homeless people,its relations with the homeless in Shinjuku stayed distant and weak. Theleadership maintained distance from the homeless in four ways. First, itstayed away from the encampment in Central Park. Shortly after the Coali-tion began its weekly food service in Central Park, another noticeableencampment emerged in the park as some of the homeless in the stationarea moved there and other homeless people came to settle. Yet, the leader-ship would not stay with the homeless to cultivate personal ties or toorganize mass action. In fact, throughout the period under study, the lead-ership never intervened in this or any other encampment in Shinjuku to cre-ate or maintain ties with the homeless. The principle of non-interventionwas so thorough that even when the leadership witnessed, for instance,homeless individuals heavily sick or engaging in violent fighting, it so oftenturned a blind eye.5

Second, the leadership terminated the weekly street meeting, whichhad lasted since early 1994 and was open to every homeless person. It fur-ther limited the other weekly meeting in a church building to the Coalitionleadership and homeless regulars in Shinjuku while inviting representativesof the other movement groups in Tokyo, mostly non-homeless activists.The leadership rearranged the Coalition’s meetings because it did not wantto be bothered by other issues than the support center program; homelesspersons tended to raise communal issues during meetings. As a matter offact, the leadership discouraged not only non-policy talks but also policytalks among the homeless regulars. In the closed meeting, homeless regularswere not expected to have an equal say about the support center programor any other ongoing or future program for the homeless since the strategictrack was laid out by the Coalition leadership and the leadership did notwant to hear anything that deviated from its plan.



The Coalition leadership dissociated itself from the encampment inCentral Park and terminated the street meeting because certification ren-dered insignificant substantive participation by the homeless in the move-ment. Since the Welfare Bureau of the TMG recognized the Coalition as agroup representing the interests of the homeless in Shinjuku, for the leader-ship, it was no longer necessary to maintain or create ties with the homelessin the encampment. Also, since the leadership gained more or less regularaccess to TMG welfare officials, if not polity membership, supposedly moresubstantive and fruitful policy-related talks could take place with these offi-cials and other non-homeless activists who were much better informedabout policy developments in Tokyo than were the homeless in Shinjuku.

Third, the Coalition leadership did not problematize exclusionarypractices by authorities. While threats of large-scale evictions were largelyabsent from Shinjuku, small-scale evictions and confiscations by the policeand private security guards frequently occurred in the streets, stations, andparks. In Central Park, park authorities conducted partial evictions whenthey found certain groups of homeless settlers problematic.6 The Coalitionleadership, however, tried not to get itself involved in these exclusionarypractices. Sometimes, it even welcomed the displacement of troublesomehomeless persons. The Coalition leadership implicitly accepted exclusion-ary practices toward the homeless because these practices helped keeppeace and order in Central Park. Because the leadership officially espousedthe anti-eviction principle, it would have to intervene if a large-scale evic-tion took place in the park as a result of disorder. This was something theleadership wanted to avoid.

Fourth, the Coalition leadership limited the role of homeless regularsin the movement. As I noted above, the leadership alienated the regularsfrom substantive participation in the weekly meeting in a church. After cer-tification, the leadership, especially Takai, expected homeless regulars toprovide only manual labor for patrol, food preparation, and collectiveaction events sponsored by the Coalition and the Alliance in Tokyo.

As a result, the number of homeless participants in the Coalition’s reg-ular activities declined. Before the final period of the movement, a few toseveral dozen homeless persons joined patrol, meetings, food preparationand service, and collective application for welfare. Now a few to a dozenhomeless persons regularly participated in these activities. The declineoccurred as these activities were dissociated from movement activities and asthey lost substance and vigor. Especially for those who were with the Coali-tion in the 1995–96 anti-eviction campaign or the more recent campaignagainst the tentative support center program that threatened the new village,movement activities, regular activities, and daily survival activities were



inseparable from each other. These homeless people, for example,“recruited” participants in risky actions from their spatial, communal, andwork-related networks. Regular activities were also embedded in the everyday life of the homeless in West Shinjuku. Now these connections weregone, since the leadership separated movement activities from the commu-nal life (S. Honda 1998b).

Relatedly, whereas regular activities used to involve solidarity build-ing among the homeless as well as a sense of self-worth and responsibility,they no longer did. For instance, in the initial period of the movement,homeless patrollers talked to the “comrades” they met on the streets, try-ing to find out their grievances and suggesting collective solutions to thesegrievances. However, patrollers in the final period only distributed flyersadvocating the support center program and the homeless assistance bill.The same was true with the weekly meeting. Previously, in the open streetmeeting, homeless people discussed a range of issues, including whathomeless policy in Tokyo should be like, what to demand at the local wel-fare office (e.g., Flyer dated May 21, 1995), and communal initiativessuch as collective cleaning of the station area (e.g., Flyer dated June 11,1995). Now, the church meeting began with routine reporting of localevents by non-homeless activists and proceeded to scheduling and coordi-nation of Tokyo-wide collective events. Important issues were quickly dis-cussed and determined by the activists.7 Thus, regular activities lostsubstance and vigor, and attracted much less indigenous participation thanthey did before.8

Finally, internal activities thrived in Central Park and other placeswhere homelessness concentrated. Specifically, homeless people in Shin-juku increasingly engaged in mutual surveillance and exclusionary prac-tices among themselves in order to avoid authorities’ evictions andconfiscations. Efforts to avoid evictions and confiscations were presentin the initial period of the movement. These efforts, however, typicallytook collective forms, such as planning and carrying out periodicalcleaning among the village residents (S. Honda 1997). When the TMGtried to evict and confiscate, homeless people protested collectively(Kasai 1999). In the new village in the concourse near JR Shinjuku sta-tion, efforts to keep order took the form of Takai’s frequent warningsand instructions as well as a violent form, involving groups of magazinevenders. Now exclusion was not necessarily practiced violently but in aroutine manner by homeless individuals and groups. Most often theywatched each other’s behavior and excluded troublesome individualsrather than make collective effort at protecting themselves or protestexternal exclusionary forces.



How did the closer relations between polity members and the Coali-tion leadership and the weak relations between the homeless and the lead-ership affect the goals of the Coalition? Apparently, the leadershipabandoned the operational goal of communal protection and focused itsattention on policy. Moreover, the leadership determined goals with littleinput or consensus from the homeless in Shinjuku. By helping the WelfareBureau open several year-round support centers, the leadership hoped towin light jobs and interim housing—a goal set on the basis of discussionwith the homeless in Shinjuku. Yet, it abandoned the goal when the centralgovernment became involved in the homeless issue, and began seeking ahomeless assistance act and an alternative national homeless policy, allwithout substantive mass involvement in the decision-making process.

The Coalition leadership abandoned its pursuit of light jobs andinterim housing because these became remote as the Alliance in Tokyoengaged in a protracted campaign for year-round support centers in Tokyo.The campaign became protracted in turn because the weak relationsbetween the leadership and the homeless did not allow them to use unruly,disruptive tactics. Without employment and housing programs, supportcenters were “little more than another set of shelters,” as one senior mem-ber of the San’ya League put it. Refusing to get stuck with the slow devel-opment of the campaign, the Shibuya Coalition started its ownemployment program before any support center opened (Yuasa 2000).With declining interest in and capacity for gaining light jobs and interimhousing, the involvement of the central government in the homeless issuerepresented an opportunity for the Coalition leadership.

Few homeless people in Shinjuku were in fact interested in enlargingthe movement to pass the homeless assistance bill or advocate a commongoal for the homeless across the country. The bill emphasized Tokyo’s sup-port center program as a model, and was hence not attractive to the major-ity of the homeless in Shinjuku and elsewhere in Tokyo. Pursuit of acommon goal, or public guarantee of employment and livelihood for allhomeless in Japan, was not insignificant but lacked concrete strategies.Besides, national rallies and demonstrations did not excite the homeless inShinjuku very much, since they were not so different from the ones theyhad at other times, which encompassed homeless people and their alliesfrom different parts of the city and/or the country. In Shinjuku, for thosehomeless men who were in the newly opened year-round support centers,the shift in the locus of struggle from the city to national level meant thatlittle attention was paid to the problems they encountered in the facilities.For those who were on the streets, it meant continued lack of cooperationby the Coalition leadership in maintaining spatial safety.



Ultimately, the Coalition leadership gave up its overarching goal. Itadopted the mainstream approach to the homeless issue in Japan, namely,encouraging individual, rather than collective, effort at getting off thestreets within the existing policy framework that categorized the homelessto fit it. When homelessness became a national issue, metropolitan welfareofficials became governed by policy instructions from the central govern-ment and bureaucratic rigidity set in. Thus, according to these instructions,the Welfare Bureau closed down the winter shelters in Ota and ShinjukuWards on the ground that there were now year-round support centers(Yamakara, February 8, 2003). When a support center outside ShinjukuWard was found to be unpopular and only half filled, Takai asked theBureau for a larger quota for the homeless in Shinjuku so that the centerwould be filled. Yet, he was flatly rejected and given a quota proportionalto the size of the homeless population (Flyer dated May 12, 2002).

Under the circumstances, Takai urged the homeless in Shinjuku tomake individual efforts to get off the streets. Specifically, he told the home-less that individual efforts were important since that was how they became“socially recognized against prejudice and discrimination” (Flyer dated July21, 2002). In line with the homeless assistance act effective for a decade,Takai proclaimed that the homeless “should not really count on public wel-fare or support centers” since, “for a decade to come, the principle of com-petition will guide you to get off the streets” (Flyer dated September 22,2002).9 Hence, the Coalition, in effect, abandoned the overarching goal ofpublic guarantee of employment and livelihood. At the end of 2002, thegroup joined a non-profit organization (NPO) to work on its own employ-ment and housing programs.

The shifts in goals and the way they shifted indicate that, in the finalperiod of the movement, the Coalition leaders, especially Takai and Irino,became more like movement entrepreneurs, as conceptualized in the RMperspective, than like organizers of a mass movement. Goals were subjectto the interests of the Coalition leadership and polity members rather thanthose of the aggrieved. Goals were determined by the leadership ratherthan through contentious interactions between the aggrieved and publicofficials (Piven and Cloward 1979). In particular, in the final period, Takaicontinued to set goals in such a way as to fit the interests of political elitesin an effort to make as many gains as possible without relying on disrup-tive tactics. Toward the collapse of the Coalition, Takai increasinglyresented non-homeless activists who deviated from his plan; he therebyisolated himself. In sum, the experience of the movement in Tokyo resem-bles that of the suburban community that Lo (1992) studied. That is,mobilization of elite resources, if it occurs, takes place in a later phase of a



challengers’ movement. Although the Coalition remained outside thepolity, the RM model fits the final period of the movement in Tokyo to theextent that it became a proxy movement, with its non-homeless leadershipcrafting goals and mobilizing elite resources on behalf of the aggrieved.


In the initial and transitional periods of the movement, the Coalition usedall three types of tactics, namely, unruly, direct action tactics; non-institu-tional but acceptable tactics, such as registered rallies and demonstrations;and institutional tactics, such as lobbying and voting. The main tactics ofthe Coalition were disruptive in the initial period and institutional andacceptable non-institutional in the transitional period. In contrast, in thefinal period of the movement, the Coalition never used disruptive tacticsand relied solely on the other types of tactics. No “intensive action” wasmobilized, and no band of homeless people stormed public offices in thisperiod. Instead, lobbying, pressuring, representative talks, and registeredrallies and demonstrations proliferated.

Does the absence of disruptive, direct action tactics mean that theCoalition achieved nothing in the final period of the movement? Socialmovement researchers generally agree that, for challengers excluded fromthe polity, disruptive tactics are more conducive to fruitful outcomes thaninstitutional means of influence (Gamson 1975; McAdam 1982; Piven andCloward 1979). As we saw in Chapter 4, the Coalition, indeed, won anumber of collective benefits by using disruptive tactics. In the transitionalperiod, when the Coalition was capable of using disruptive tactics, itachieved a collective benefit, or certification. It should be noted that thepositive relationship between disruptive tactics and gains holds as long asmovement groups remain challengers, or outside the polity. In the finalperiod of the movement, the Coalition, being certified, was no longer agroup of pure challengers but close to a polity member if not exactly apolity member in the sense of having routine access to and influence onpolitical elites.

Some researchers (e.g., Amenta, Dunleavy, and Bernstein 1994) haveargued that a movement group can achieve gains without using disruptivetactics if it is surrounded by a favorable political environment, for example,one with sympathetic political elites. In fact, the homeless SMOs Cress andSnow (2000) studied did not have to use disruptive tactics to achieve gainswhen they had elite allies or sympathetic council members. Similarly, in thefinal period, the Coalition achieved a couple of gains as a certified movementgroup. Specifically, it achieved improvements in the winter shelter system



and the opening of a few year-round support centers. The former were rel-atively minor but benefited all homeless people in Tokyo since the wintershelters were open to all kinds of homeless people and since large numbersof homeless people actually used these shelters.10 By contrast, the latterwas a major achievement in that no year-round shelters existed before theCoalition pushed for them. Yet, it benefited only a small segment of thehomeless population in Tokyo since they were open to able-bodied home-less men willing to seek full-time jobs (Asahi Evening News, December 15,2000).11

In what follows, we examine the tactics the Coalition used and thegains it achieved in the final period of the movement. In the period, theCoalition pursued three main policy goals: year-round support centers, aworkable national homeless policy, and a homeless assistance act. To makeyear-round support centers available to the homeless in Tokyo, the Coali-tion, along with the other member groups of the Alliance in Tokyo,launched a campaign from mid-1998 till mid-2001 when three such centersbecame available for a total of 230 homeless men at a given time (Flyerdated May 1, 2001). During the three-year period, the Alliance sponsorednumerous collective action events. First, it sponsored several mass talks andat least a dozen representative briefings with metropolitan welfare officials.Second, the Alliance made a few rounds of several ward governments thatwere responsible for the administrative procedures involved in the supportcenter program. Third, in addition to the usual May Day rally and demon-stration, the Alliance held another rally and demonstration in October andan indoor gathering in June. Finally, in the spring of 2000 and 2001, theAlliance every Friday held a small demonstration in front of the TMGheadquarters.

These collective action events drew large numbers of homeless peo-ple. The number of participants in the May Day rally and demonstration,which used to be 300 to 400, rose to 500 in 1998 and further to about 630in 1999 (Hiyatoi Zenkyô News, June 15, 1999). Participants in the Octo-ber rally and demonstration increased in number from 300 in 1998 to 500in 1999 (ibid., November 1, 1999). About 300 to 370 came to the indoorgathering in June. Every time a mass talk took place with TMG welfareofficials, 140 to 170 homeless people crowded the facility where talkswere held.

However, these events were all preplanned and quite “adaptive.” Inmass talks, the participants, while sometimes raising angry voices againstthe slow progress of the support center program, always ended in favor ofthe small advancements the Welfare Bureau had made since the last talk.Representative briefings were even more modest. As some of the homeless



participants put it, delegates “just listen to them [welfare officials] explain-ing why they can’t do this and that.” Registered rallies and demonstrationsroutinely sent delegates to the Welfare Bureau with a long list of signaturesfrom the homeless in Tokyo, calling for the early opening of support cen-ters. The June gathering was to advocate the significance of pursuing sup-port centers. The series of visits that the Alliance made to wardgovernments were exceptional. While these visits were all prearranged, theparticipants sometimes staged a “sit-in” on the floor, protesting the slowprogress in strong language. And ward representatives took quick actionwhen they were urged to do so by the participants.

In addition, while social movement researchers often assume thatlarger numbers of participants are more powerful than smaller ones, thepresent example indicates that it is not necessarily the case. As Tilly(1999) reminds us with the notion of WUNC, not only numbers but alsoworthiness, unity, and commitment count to generate power to influencethe target of action. In fact, the pro-center campaign in Tokyo wasrather weak, since homeless people participated for reasons other than abelief in the support center program. In my observation, the campaigndrew many participants because (1) more people were homeless in thelatter part of the 1990s than before (by August 1998, 4,300 were home-less in the city [TMG 2001: 2]); (2) participants came from differentparts of Tokyo; (3) by the time the campaign began, large-scale ralliesand demonstrations had become customary among the homeless in thecity; (4) the majority of the participants were from Shinjuku where theCoalition leadership advertised falsely that support centers were open toall homeless people and would eventually offer light jobs and interimhousing; and, finally, (5) the newly homeless participated largely out ofcuriosity.12

Hence, it took much longer for the Alliance to gain this selective ben-efit than it had expected. Although Takai once hoped that the support cen-ters for “fire victims” would develop into year-round ones, the two centersclosed quietly in January 1999 (Kasai 2000). Although the Welfare Bureausaid in a negotiation that a couple of year-round support centers would beavailable by the end of FY 1999, it did not come true, either. Instead, inDecember 1999, the Alliance was given a small tentative support programin a public lodging house, open to 30 to 40 homeless men (Yamakara, April8, 2000). In Shinjuku, rather than celebrate it as a “victory,” Takai couldonly advise the homeless to check with the welfare office for details if theywere interested (Flyer dated December 19, 1999). In sum, while it is truethat the Alliance in Tokyo contributed much to the availability of supportcenters, it nonetheless took as long as three years to have three such centers



in operation and a few others scheduled for operation in the future. More-over, the protracted campaign produced doubts on the efficacy of the cam-paign and support centers within the Alliance in Tokyo.

In mid-2000 when it seemed certain that a few year-round supportcenters were opening one after another (Shinjuku Renraku Kai News,April 15, 2000), the Alliance began targeting the central government. Itdid so as it split into two camps: (1) Harada and other non-homelessactivists from San’ya and Shibuya, who targeted welfare and laboradministrators, and (2) Takai and Irino, who targeted legislators. In 1999and 2000, the former organized a national rally and demonstration inTokyo, mobilizing at least 25 movement and advocacy groups across thecountry that worked on homelessness at that time (Hôki, November 10,1999). They included a group of case workers who risked police violenceand arrest in the anti-eviction campaign and San’ya’s advocacy group thathelped the Coalition win certification by placing an opinion ad in a well-read magazine in Japan. Most of the participant groups knew each othersince the “homeless movement industry” was small and some had a rela-tively long history of co-work through the National Federation of DayLaborers’ Leagues (ibid.).

For each rally and demonstration, Harada and his colleagues mobi-lized several hundred homeless people and their non-homeless allies for thecommon purpose of seeking public guarantee of employment and liveli-hood without forced evictions. They sent delegates to the Ministry ofHealth, Welfare and Labor to urge officials to take initiative in devising aworkable homeless policy for the country. Takai and Irino sided with anNPO in Kamagasaki, created by the Kama Coalition, which had longpushed the local and prefectural governments to press the central govern-ment toward a homeless assistance act (T. Honda 1999). To see such an actenacted in Japan, between June 2000 and July 2002, Takai and Irino coop-erated with this and other pro-legislation groups and engaged in lobbying,petitioning, letter sending, and other institutional activities. They also heldmodest rallies and demonstrations around the Diet, each attended by 40 to100 homeless people and their advocates from some parts of Japan.

However, these attempts did very little to contribute to a betternational homeless policy and the enactment of a homeless assistance act. Inthe few representative talks with welfare and labor administrators, the del-egates made specific demands (such as provision of regular welfare for allhomeless people), but none of the demands were accepted. The homelessassistance bill prepared by the DPJ, LDP, and the Clean Party passed in July2002 and was enacted two months later, but the institutional tactics of thepro-legislation campaign did not affect the substance or timing of the



enactment. Moreover, as far as the homeless in Tokyo are concerned, it isdoubtful whether the assistance act added anything beneficial to theaggrieved because support centers were already available.

In 2002, the decline of the movement in Tokyo became apparent. TheSWG evicted 20 homeless in a park and fenced it to exclude homeless peo-ple (Asahi, March 13, 2002), but the Coalition leadership did not try toprotest it with the evictees. Instead, Takai directed his activities towardother movement groups. For example, he framed anti-legislation groups as“radical political groups that take advantage of the aggrieved for theirdubious revolutionary dreams” (Kasai 2002), although none of thesegroups were actually “revolutionary.” In 2002, the number of participantsin the May Day rally and demonstration dropped to 360, with 200 of themcoming from Shinjuku where 1,400 people were homeless (Flyer dated May5, 2002; Yamakara, June 15, 2002). Finally, in October 2002, Takaiapplied for incorporation, although he retained the Shinjuku Coalition as aseparate unit. Two months later, the application was accepted.

In sum, the Shinjuku Coalition in the final period of the movementbrought a selective benefit (i.e., a few, highly selective year-round supportcenters) to the homeless in Tokyo. In addition, shortly after certification bythe Welfare Bureau of the TMG, indigenous regulars of the Coalitionhelped bring a collective benefit by organizing collective action, targetingwinter shelter supervisors and their managing agency. As a result the home-less achieved more privacy and safety, better rules for job-searching activi-ties, and a ban on discrimination by supervisors in the winter shelter system(Flyer dated May 17, 1998; Shinjuku Renraku Kai News, January 31,1998). The Coalition, as a certified movement group, delivered these bene-fits by using institutional and non-institutional but acceptable tactics.

There were two major drawbacks, however. First, as I mentioned ear-lier, the homeless in West Shinjuku, as they did in the transitional period,continued to suffer loss of a safe encampment free of confiscations andevictions due to the neglect of spatial maintenance and communal life onthe part of the Coalition leadership. Moreover, the phenomenon spread inShinjuku insofar as the leadership focused its attention on policy. As aresult, homeless people in Shinjuku became more oriented to individualrather than collective efforts at preventing exclusionary practices. Individ-ual efforts included mutual surveillance and exclusion of other homelessindividuals who caused trouble.

Second, a number of homeless people in Shinjuku lost belief in themovement in Tokyo. There were three sources of this disbelief. One was thelengthy campaign for support centers. Just like the non-homeless activistsin San’ya and Shibuya, many homeless people, including regulars, began to



doubt the efficacy of the campaign; time passed without getting close topublic employment and housing programs. Another was the Coalition’sshift in interest to national agenda. After the leadership became preoccu-pied with national policy and legislation, homeless persons, especially thosewho were once close to the leadership, felt that the activists were “using thehomeless for their own political purposes” or “just hanging around by try-ing to get what’s already there” (from my interviews with homeless individ-uals). At least a few homeless persons openly criticized the leadership thisway, for example, to foreign journalists.

A third source of disbelief in the movement was the contradictionbetween the truth and what the Coalition’s top leader proclaimed. Forinstance, while Takai told the homeless that support centers were open toall homeless people (e.g., Flyer dated August 23, 1998) in an effort tokeep attracting the attention of the constituency, the homeless learnedsooner or later that they were not. Also, while the activists “said weshould help the weakest first, they actually ignore these people” (from myfield notes). Further, when Takai advocated support of a homeless assis-tance bill, he avoided informing the homeless that the bill contained aclause that could be interpreted as allowing evictions once policy wasimplemented. In fact, most of the movement and advocacy groups as wellas homeless people in Japan opposed the bill or at least raised questionsabout it because of the particular clause (Zenkokukon 2001).13 Until thebill passed, however, Takai would not publicize the possible link betweenthe bill and eviction of the homeless in Shinjuku (Flyer dated July 14,2002). These and other instances of Takai’s withdrawal of informationand wishful, makeshift framing undermined the credibility and legitimacyof the movement in Tokyo.14

Overall, then, in the final period of the movement, the Coalitionbrought to the homeless in Tokyo the selective benefit of a few year-roundsupport centers and the collective benefit of better services at the winter shel-ters while undermining the credibility and legitimacy of the movement anddoing little to recover encampment space free of evictions and confiscations.

The foregoing examination of tactics and gains confirms that, in afavorable political environment, movement groups can make gains even ifthey do not use disruptive tactics. Yet, it also suggests that these gains maybe more limited than those achieved through disruptive tactics within ahostile political environment. The present examination further confirms myargument that, when the relations between the aggrieved and their allies aredistant or even conflicted, then the movement group in question may pro-duce selective rather than collective benefits because such relations make it



difficult for the two parties to assemble resources to pursue goals whichbenefit everyone.

SUMMARY

Certification by the TMG finalized the weakening relations between thehomeless and the Coalition leadership while bringing about closer relationsbetween the latter and political elites. Certification enabled the leadershipto make important decisions about the movement without substantive massinputs or agreements, and prompted it to obtain or maintain elite connec-tions. Certification further encouraged some of the homeless regulars andtheir “comrades” in West Shinjuku to take initiative in working on griev-ances largely neglected by the leadership. No longer stigmatized as threatsto order but recognized as legitimate claimants of rights, the homeless per-sons tried to improve winter shelter conditions in such a way as to benefitall homeless people in Tokyo. Takai, however, undermined these efforts inorder to control the movement. Thus, their ongoing relations with the lead-ership did not allow them to fully explore possibilities that came along withthe new status.

Consistent with the tripartite relations, the leadership neglected a last-ing concern among the homeless in Shinjuku, namely, spatial safety andmaintenance. It instead focused on policy. The leadership first sought year-round self-sustenance support centers, wishing to introduce public employ-ment and housing programs into the centers once they opened. Yet, itabandoned the goal as it found the goal difficult to achieve and as it identi-fied an opportunity to scale up the movement to the national level. Thepoor leadership-homeless relations manifested not only in the shift in goalsbut also in the way in which goals were determined, since the leadershipvirtually excluded the homeless from the internal decision-making process.Moreover, the Coalition as well as its allies in Tokyo and Japan never useddisruptive tactics but relied on institutional and acceptable non-institu-tional tactics. While the certified status of the Coalition enabled the groupto make gains without using disruptive tactics, these gains were limited to aselective benefit (i.e., a few support centers) and a small collective benefit(i.e., improved winter shelters in Tokyo). Further, the group helped assurethat occasional evictions and confiscations would continue and also under-mined the credibility and legitimacy of the movement.

Examination of the final period of the movement confirms an argu-ment that has been maintained throughout the previous chapters. That is,the state interacts with challengers continuously. In Tokyo, the TMG inter-acted with the Shinjuku Coalition for the entire duration of the movement



and, in the final period, led the movement to a decline by certifying theleading movement group. The present examination also endorses my claimthat transgressive mobilization is likely to occur when the aggrieved andtheir collaborators put together resources, especially intangible ones.Apparently, in the final period, no resource aggregation occurred. Thispartly explains the limited nature of the gains that the movement generateddespite the improved status of the leading movement group. Finally, thischapter demonstrated that the relations between the aggrieved and theirexternally originated collaborators are not constant but variable over time.In Tokyo, what started out as solidaristic relations subsequently weakenedand ultimately settled in distant, sometimes even conflicting, relations.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS OF THE STUDY

I posed three sets of questions at the beginning of this book. Here I providea summary of my answers to the questions.

1. How did the non-homeless activists succeed in organizing thehomeless, who are usually considered as unorganizable? Why did themovement emerge in West Shinjuku?

Non-homeless activists from San’ya organized homeless people inWest Shinjuku by leading a series of collective protests and by introducingsome familiar activities in San’ya in such a way as to promote solidarityamong the homeless and encourage their participation in the emergingmovement. At the same time, the activists were careful in intervening in thelives of the homeless persons in the encampment and tried to build on,rather than transform or dislocate, what social organization existed in thehomeless encampment. In the process, patrol, application for welfare, andfood serving, which tended to be considered as “relief” activities in San’ya,quickly became “movement” activities in West Shinjuku. The activists andhomeless persons used these activities to recruit homeless participants fromboth inside and outside the encampment.

Although the non-homeless activists played a crucial role in mobiliz-ing the homeless, sustained contentious interaction with public officialswas possible only because the officials responded in ways that threatenedthe lives of the homeless and fueled their anger. While the activists fromSan’ya had very limited contact with the homeless in Shinjuku, this was notan obstacle to their organizing effort because of the provocative behaviorsshown to and remarks thrown at the protestors. Thus, the homeless offeredsuch resources as anger, belief in a cause, strong commitment to the partic-ular space, and knowledge or experience of eviction, confiscation, andother maltreatments by polity members. These resources combined with



the activists’—a degree of familiarity with the homeless problem, actionrepertoires that included direct protest, articulate framing, and commit-ment to the site of the emerging movement. The homeless movementemerged in West Shinjuku because, unlike other homeless settlements, theone in West Shinjuku directly challenged the interests of large firms and theTMG.

2. Why did the activists abandon community-based mobilization andtry to control the movement with an unequal internal structure? Why didtheir relations with the constituency deteriorate?

The most important factor was the action of the TMG. The activistsabandoned community-based mobilization because repression by the TMGmade it difficult and its subsequent certification made it unnecessary. TheTMG repressed the movement group by arresting the key leaders (or sepa-rating them from the constituency), destroying spatial arrangements thatfacilitated both communal life and protest activities, and blocking face-to-face interaction with officials inside. The leaders eventually returned toWest Shinjuku, but the new spatial arrangements, growth of anti-move-ment forces in the encampment (or narrowed space for the leaders), and thelack of direct access to TMG officials severely limited the future prospectsfor mobilization based on communal relationships. The following certifica-tion by the TMG rendered communal mobilization unnecessary becausethe movement group was now recognized as a legitimate representative ofthe interests of the homeless. This freed the leadership from the difficulttask of rebuilding a community in the encampment.

After certification, the leadership tried to control the movement groupby subordinating the homeless. Initially, the internal structure of the groupwas relatively horizontal. Although non-homeless activists took leadership,homeless persons were certainly involved in the decision-making process, andthey sometimes advised the external collaborators as mentors. The activistsalso encouraged mass initiatives. Following certification, however, the leader-ship made decisions on all matters that it considered as important and ignoredor destroyed others. In particular, the top leader told homeless persons whatto do and, if they did not follow his command, he framed them as “irresponsi-ble” and spread the incompliant behavior to other homeless and non-home-less individuals so that they would act against them. Homeless people, ontheir part, became less and less vocal in expressing their opinion, especiallywhen they knew or sensed that it contradicted the leadership interests.Although homeless regulars sometimes wrote their own flyers in the formativeperiod of the movement, they no longer did so.

The change in the relations between the aggrieved and their collabo-rators occurred, again, because of repression and certification. Repression



weakened their solidarity, and certification urged the leadership to focusattention on policy developments and mobilization of the homeless fromfar beyond West Shinjuku to relate itself to these developments. As themovement arena grew from the metropolitan to the national level, the lead-ership had to spend time in smooth coordination and operation of action(since action was no longer spontaneous and had to be planned ahead andrun peacefully). It also had to spend time to closely study policy mattersand prepare alternative suggestions. The leadership no longer had the timeto listen to and act on grievances among the local constituency. Yet, morefundamental than the problem of time in creating an unequal internalstructure was certification under the condition of weakening solidaritybetween the leadership and the homeless, for there were other, more demo-cratic means than inequality to solve the temporal problem and to dealwith grievances. It was certification under the condition of weakening lead-ership-homeless relations that was largely responsible for the subordinationof the aggrieved.

3. What benefits did the movement group bring to the aggrieved?Why did the number of benefits decline and why did they gain some selec-tivity over time?

Between 1994 and 2002, including the several months before they puta name on it, the movement group in West Shinjuku generated a number ofbenefits by mobilizing homeless people in Shinjuku and other parts ofTokyo. They were: 1) an encampment free of exclusion in one of the mostlivable places for the homeless in the absence of a workable homeless pol-icy; 2) occasional mass negotiations with the local welfare office; 3) easieraccess to regular welfare in Shinjuku; 4) a better designation of the home-less; 5) issue transformation on the local level from environment to policy;6) wide public recognition of the homeless problem; 7) a group of welfareworkers offering expert knowledge on welfare; 8) improvements in thetemporary shelter system in Tokyo; 9) occasional mass negotiations withthe Welfare Bureau of the TMG; and 10) a few homeless facilities to helpthe homeless in Tokyo to seek full-time jobs.

These gains by no means spread evenly throughout the movement.That is, the movement generated a greater number of gains in the initialperiod than in the later periods and these gains were of universal nature.The initial period corresponds to the time when the relations between thenon-homeless activists and the homeless were close and solidaristic. Thetwo parties decided goals as they interacted with common opponents, andjoined their resources to pursue them. Their relations and resource aggrega-tion allowed them to pursue goals that would benefit everyone and to usedisruptive tactics toward the ends. As a result, the parties won a number of



collective benefits. In fact, most of the aforementioned gains were achievedin the initial period of the movement.

After the TMG repressed the movement group, however, its internalrelations as well as relations with opponents weakened, and the goalsshowed signs of divergence. The movement group seldom amassedresources, seldom used disruptive tactics, and hence won only one collec-tive benefit. Further, with certification, internal relations became decidedlydistant, with the leadership treating political elites as allies rather thanopponents. The leadership and the homeless pursued separate goals andlost crucial resources for disruptive tactics. Although the certified statusallowed the group to make gains, they were limited to one collective andone selective benefits. Moreover, the former reflected the interests of thehomeless whereas the latter corresponded more to the interests of the lead-ership. Thus, to a large extent, the gains of the movement in Tokyodepended on the action of the TMG. Its actions shaped the number andtypes of movement gains by altering the relations among the homeless,non-homeless activists, and themselves.

* * *

Are there any lessons that one can learn from the experience of themovement in Tokyo? I suggest a few in conclusion of this study. First, asit is apparent from the brief summary of research findings, the state canplay a far more significant role in lower-stratum movements than it isoften described. The effect of state action on a movement can be far-reaching, encompassing its emergence, development, and decline, as wellas goals, tactics, and gains on the part of the challengers. Moreover, in amixed movement in which the aggrieved and their external collaboratorsparticipate, the state action may be directed to, or its effect may be medi-ated by, the relations between the two parties. A stark example is repres-sion; when the state takes a repressive action in a mixed movement, itmay do so in such a way to undermine the relations between the twoinstead of destroying the movement en masse. Their undermined solidar-ity will then decrease the likelihood of achieving gains. Even the state’srecognition of the movement group as a legitimate claimant of rights orthe availability of sympathetic allies in the state apparatus does not guar-antee significant gains if the two parties are not on good terms with eachother. This, I believe, is the case especially when the certifying state agentor elite sympathizer lacks the ability or willingness to promote concertedeffort on the part of the movement group(s) toward a better policy forthe aggrieved.



Second, relatedly, in a mixed movement, the relations between theaggrieved and their collaborators are not always as simple and constant asit is often assumed. Participation by collaborators may prove crucial inmovement emergence, but their ongoing relations with the mass base maybe complex and changing. At a given point in time, different groups of col-laborators with different ideological and action orientations may be tryingto relate themselves to the aggrieved, or different collaborators in the samegroup may have quite different ideas about and attitudes toward theaggrieved, even if they do not show these differences in public. Over time,the relations between the aggrieved and their collaborators can become dis-tant, even antagonistic. Externally originated coworkers may continue tomeet and mobilize the aggrieved with little solidarity with them, or theymay begin to cultivate ties with polity members without substantive inputfrom the mass base. In an effort to fulfill their own purposes or purposeswhich they believe will serve the aggrieved better, coworkers may blockindigenous efforts to solve problems or deprive the aggrieved of theirpotential power to influence policymakers.

Third and finally, the above conclusions lead us to the question ofhow the aggrieved and their collaborators could possibly sustain solidaris-tic relations. In the present case, the state was largely responsible for cleav-ages that emerged between the homeless and non-homeless activists, but itdoes not mean that there is little challengers can do to minimize adverseeffects of actions of the state. I consider the question as important espe-cially because lower-stratum people, such as the homeless, are politicallyand economically in a disadvantaged position vis-à-vis their collaborators(T. Wright 1997). The Sanrizuka struggle in which Takai and Harada par-ticipated may illustrate the point.15 In the struggle, local farmers rose tooppose the construction of the Tokyo International Airport that wouldundermine their lives, and they accepted participation by different NewLeft sects under the condition that they would never introduce sectionalismand internal strife into the area (Apter and Sawa 1984). While the farmersin Sanrizuka were able to do so, homeless people in Tokyo did not have thepower to condition the way in which potential or actual collaborators par-ticipated. When homeless persons considered their collaborators dissatis-factory or incomprehensible, they “resisted” by, for example, refusing toparticipate or participating just to obtain food.

The experience of the movement in Tokyo suggests that key to lastingsolidarity between the aggrieved and their collaborators would be discus-sion and the creation or maintenance of a democratic internal structurethat assures it. T. Wright’s study (1997) on homeless mobilizations inChicago and San Jose indicates that the student supporters of homeless



people in San Jose solved inequalities between the two through discussionas well as attentive listening on the part of the supporters. In Tokyo, non-homeless activists entertained different political ideologies, views on home-lessness, attitudes toward the homeless, and ideas as to how the movementshould work, and they tended to solve internal tensions through actionwithout discussion. While the stress on action enabled some of the activiststo transcend their differences to help a movement emerge and grow, itbecame a liability when action became difficult after repression and whendiscussion on future strategies became necessary after certification. In myobservation, the lack of consensus building through discussion reinforcedthe impacts of repression and certification.

One way to secure a democratic internal structure and discussionwould be to rotate leadership among challengers, especially by invitingmass participants. In the movement group this study detailed, externallyoriginated collaborators seemed to continue to take leadership partlybecause they believed that mass participants should not stay with a groupthat pursued policy to reduce their number, and partly because theybelieved that they should take responsibility for the movement by continu-ing to participate in it because they initiated it. Yet, a number of homelesspeople, including regulars, remained on the streets for years anyway, andthe few activists who stayed long in the field as leaders took responsibilityfor the movement by taming it. In fact, homeless persons whom I inter-viewed often saw the group as too weak (in tactics, power, and/or enthusi-asm). They believed that more and deeper mass participation was necessaryto influence public officials.

Opening the way to leadership by energetic mass participants, new com-ers or old timers, will help keep the movement alive. Rotating leadership willalso help reduce status differences between the aggrieved and their collabora-tors and promote dialogue between the two. It may benefit challengers fur-ther; the aggrieved will have an opportunity to learn leadership skills andcollaborators will have the time to learn from other movements. In Tokyo, thetop leader of the movement group suffered apathy, and the sub-leader whoworked close to him, “burnout,” at least partly because they continued rou-tine activities for many years without going beyond the narrow movement cir-cle. On the contrary, a number of homeless regulars helped achieve majorgains not by participating in the movement without interruption but by join-ing collective action intensively for a short period of time. Relatedly, rotatingleadership will lessen the tendency among some challengers to gauge eachother’s commitment mainly by the length of time devoted to the given move-ment. Long-term commitment is surely a resource and it is often a requisite forlower-stratum movements, but only insofar as it leads to collective gains.



Another way to promote a democratic internal structure and discus-sion would be to recognize the importance of popular education (CTLS2005). Popular education presupposes mass participation and builds on thelived experience and knowledge among the aggrieved. It would involveexpression of concrete grievances by the aggrieved, identification of com-mon or priority grievances, analysis of the structural origins of these griev-ances, and discussion of how to connect the analysis to action. In the earlyphase of the movement in Tokyo, some popular education took place, but itwas limited in many ways. For example, although non-homeless activistsfrom Shibuya sponsored a kind of consciousness raising sessions invitingpolity members, these sessions tended to neglect serious concerns amonghomeless participants and were not connected to action. Sometimes, themovement group also conducted a survey of the homeless for policy pur-poses in which homeless persons participated as research staff of a kind oranother, but analysis of the findings was always carried out by non-home-less activists. Popular education as described above will promote equal rela-tions between the aggrieved and their collaborators as well as substantivemass involvement in a movement.

Popular education will further increase opportunity to meet with indi-viduals and groups from outside the movement since issues that will appearin popular education will require external inputs. When I asked homelessinterviewees about personal gains that they achieved by participating inmovement activities, they most often cited enhanced social contact andlearning (along with self-efficacy that they felt when they helped “com-rades,” especially weaker ones). By enhanced social contact and learning,they meant meeting new people, homeless and non-homeless, both insideand outside the movement, and learning from them about dimensions ofstreet life, legal rights involved in day labor and welfare, and how to inter-pret their current circumstances in relation to the broader society. While thepopularity of this intangible gain may stem from the lack of substantivepolicy in Tokyo to help them get off the streets, their response does indicatethat they were quite open to people external to their immediate environ-ment and willing to learn. Popular education will enable these and otherlike-minded lower-stratum people, homeless or not, to have social contactand learning experience in a more collective manner.

Finally, systematic inquiries are needed into cases in which internaldemocracy and solidarity were maintained, especially in difficult times.How, for example, have some of mixed movement groups that faced a divi-sive action by their targets blocked it successfully? How have some of theothers managed to minimize the effect of such an action after they wentthrough it? Although many of the homeless people I met in Shinjuku were



critical of the ongoing movement and/or the movement group in the locale,they did not deny the utility of movements itself. In fact, almost all home-less persons whom I interviewed believed firmly that a movement was nec-essary to protect and advance the interests of the aggrieved. A commonunderstanding among them was that, although homeless people achievednothing when they acted individually, they achieved something when theyacted with other “comrades.” As one of my interviewees put it, “So, theissue is what kind of movement it should be, not whether there should be amovement or not.” As long as movements retain their utility, sometimes asthe sole means to alleviate the plight of lower-stratum people, theninquiries such as these are worth making. They will aid mixed movementsin which the primary actor and beneficiary should be the aggrieved, nottheir collaborators. These inquiries should also aid collaborators insofar asthey seek to maintain the legitimacy and accountability of mass-basedmovements in which they participate.



Appendix A

Defining and Counting the Homeless(in the U.S. and Japan)

In the United States, homelessness has been conceptualized as a conditionranging from sleeping on the street or in shelters to being marginallyhoused or in institutions (e.g., hospitals, jails, and nursing homes) with nohome to return to. The narrow definition is called “literal homelessness”(Rossi et al. 1987), pointing to the “population in need” (Blau 1992). Thebroader definition may be called “potential homelessness” (J. Wright1989), pointing to the “population at risk” (Blau 1992).

Enumeration methods have varied, too. They can be classified bysource of information and by time period covered (Peroff 1987). One wayof getting a number is to ask knowledgeable persons and the other is to dothe actual counting. Both have involved probability sampling. Enumerationcan also be done on the basis of one night (point-in-time or headcount) orof a given period of time like a month or a year. The latter encompasses allpeople experiencing homelessness at any time during the given period, and,therefore, projects a greater number of homeless people than the former(unless the same people and not others are homeless during the period).

In Japan, by contrast, homelessness has meant sleeping rough in pub-lic places. Public places here do not include automobiles and abandonedbuildings, which have been subject to enumeration in the United States(Jencks 1994). There have been a few exceptions to the definition. In linewith the 1987 United Nations’ International Year of Shelter for the Home-less, a group of housing advocates has defined the homeless as “those whoare without stable housing and living in places which cannot be calledhousing” (Nihon Jûtaku Kaigi 1988). Iwata (1995), a leading welfarescholar, has defined homelessness as a condition of extreme poverty charac-terized by the lack of “conventional, regular housing,” and estimated

147


Tokyo’s homeless population in 1985 at 15,000–20,000 and Japan’s home-less population in the same year at 100,000. Umezawa (1995) has also useda similar, broader definition. Yet, these definitions remain exceptional. Inaddition, enumeration in Japan has always been based on headcount,involving no probability sampling.

148 Appendix A


Appendix B

List of Surveys Used in the Study

PUBLICLY SPONSORED SURVEYS

1. Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry. 2003. Hômuresu no jittai nikansuru zenkoku chôsa hôkokusho (A Report of National Research on theCondition of the Homeless). Tokyo: Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry.

Date and place of survey: January-February 2003, Japan

No. of respondents: 2,115

Questions (in order asked): sex; age; sleeping place; length of stay in theplace; sleeping arrangement; diet; first experience of homelessness; lat-est experience of homelessness; temporary experience off the streets;current job and income; income outside jobs; cohabitation; problemson the streets; last occupation and form of employment; longest occu-pation held and form of employment; reasons for homelessness; type,place, and cost of last housing; experience with yoseba; health; use ofpublic welfare before and after homelessness; interest in homeless shel-ters; use of services and their usefulness; hope for the future; currentjob-seeking activities; type of occupation sought; type of employmentassistance needed; skills, licenses, and qualifications acquired in thepast; place of origin; marital status; contact with family/kin; registeredresidential status; human rights concerns; type of assistance desiredfrom public and private groups/organizations.

2. Toshi Seikatsu Kenkyû Kai (Association for Studying Urban Life), ed.2000. Heisei 11-nendo, rojô seikatsusha jittai chôsa (Research on the Con-dition of Street Dwellers, FY1999). Kanagawa: Toshi Seikatsu Kenkyû Kai.

149


Date and place of survey: March, 1999, Tokyo

No. of respondents: 710 (plus 318 in winter shelters)

Questions (in order asked): sleeping place; daytime place; experience ofhomelessness in other places; sleeping arrangement; current job andincome; how job was found; cohabitation; problems on the streets; sex;date of birth; place of origin; when the respondent came to Tokyo; edu-cation; marital status; contact with family; longest occupation held,form of employment, and participation in social insurance programs;place of residence and type of housing at that time; licenses and qualifi-cations acquired; duration of homelessness; temporary experience offthe streets; registered residential status; type of last housing and reasonsfor having left it; last occupation held, form of employment, and rea-sons for having left it; experience with yoseba; health; use of publicwelfare; experience with private services; hope for the future; occupa-tion sought; requests to government and volunteer groups.

3. Osaka Prefecture University Toshi Fukushi Kenkyû Kai (Association forStudying Urban Welfare). 2002. Osakafu nojuku seikatsusha jittai chôsahôkokusho (A Report of Research on the Condition of the Homeless inOsaka Prefecture). Osaka: Osaka Prefecture University Toshi FukushiKenkyû Kai.

Date and place of survey: March-June 2001, Osaka Prefecture (exclud-ing Osaka City).

No. of respondents: 406

Questions (in order of appearance in the report): sleeping arrangement;first experience of homelessness; duration of homelessness; first sleep-ing place; when and why the respondent moved to the current sleepingplace; reasons for choosing the current sleeping place; cohabitation;harassment by passersby and local residents and how to avoid trouble;income and savings; current job, income, and number of days worked;job-seeking activities; current use of yoseba; health; diet and how tosecure food; use of public welfare; willingness to return home withpublic assistance; participation in pension programs; temporary experi-ence off the streets; type of last housing, place of residence, reasons forhaving left the housing, and seach of help upon leaving it; last occupa-tion, its duration, form of employment, participation in social insur-

150 Appendix B


ance programs, and reasons for having left the occupation; longestoccupation held, its duration, form of employment, type of housingthen; experience with yoseba; when and why the respondent came toOsaka Prefecture; timing of becoming homeless; skills acquired; maritalstatus; contact with family/kin; sex; age; place of origin; education; reg-istered residential status; welfare and medical problems; intentions toget off the streets; hope for the future; requirements for employment;type of job sought; interest in homeless shelters.

4. Osaka City University Kankyô Mondai Kenkyû Kai (Research Associa-tion on Environmental Problems). 2000. 1999-nendo, nojuku seikatsusha(hômuresu) kikitori chôsa chûkan hôkoku (Interview Survey of StreetDwellers [Homeless People], FY1999. An Interim Report). Osaka: OsakaCity University Kankyô Mondai Kenkyû Kai.

Date and place of survey: August-September 1999, Osaka City


Questions (in order of appearance in the report): sex; cohabitation; age;place of origin; education; registered residential status; speeping place andreasons for sleeping there; sleeping arrangement; duration of homeless-ness; first experience of homelessness and sleeping arrangement; currentjob, number of days worked, income, and hours; how to secure food andother necessities of life; drinking and smoking; socialization with otherhomeless persons; experience of trouble with and kindness among localresidents; experience of eviction on the streets; use of public welfare;health; willingness to retain the current job and sleeping place; type ofoccupation sought; job-seeking activities; skills acquired; interest in jobtraining; experience with yoseba; type of work arrangement among Kam-agasaki laborers; current and future use of Kamagasaki; participation inthe day laborers’ unemployment insurance program; past and future useof homeless shelters; marital and parental status; current contact withfamily/kin; problems on the streets; requests to government and volunteergroups; conditions for voluntary evacuation.

PRIVATE SURVEYS

1. Shinjuku Renraku Kai (Shinjuku Liaison Conference). 1995. ShinjukuHomeless. Tokyo: Shinjuku Renraku Kai.

Appendix B 151


Date and place of survey: September 1994, Shinjuku


Questions (in order of appearance in the report): when the respondentcame to Shinjuku; current job; job held before coming to Shinjuku; rea-sons for coming to Shinjuku; age; job-seeking activities; participation inthe day laborers’ unemployment insurance program; diet; health; use ofwelfare offices; harassment by police and passersby; requests to govern-ment and an indigenous movement group.

2. Toshi Kôreisha Seikatsu Kenkyû Kai (Association for Studying UrbanLife of the Elderly). 1996. Shinjuku hômuresu no jittai, 1996 (The Condi-tion of the Homeless in Shinjuku, 1996). Tokyo: Toshi Kôreisha SeikatsuKenkyû Kai.

Date and place of survey: summer 1995-fall 1996, Shinjuku


Questions: sex; age; duration of homelessness; main occupation in thepast and place of residence; education, place of origin; sleeping place;reasons for having come to Shinjuku; registered residential status; par-ticipation in social insurance programs; job history; past stay in flop-houses; experience of live-in work arrangement; marital status; health;eating and bathing; socialization with other homeless persons; experi-ence with welfare services; hope for the future.

3. Resource Center for Homeless Human Rights. 1998. ’98 Tonai zen’ikihômuresu kikitori chôsa hôkoku (’98 Report of Interviews with the Home-less in Tokyo). Tokyo: Resource Center for Homeless Human Rights.

Date and place of survey: May 1998, central Tokyo


Questions: sex; age; place of origin; marital status; duration of home-lessness; main occupation in the past; reasons for homelessness; currentjob and income; job-seeking activities; interest in work; health; diet andhow to secure food; use of public welfare; experience of abuse, evic-tion, and discrimination; Do people sleep rough because they like it?

152 Appendix B


4. Resource Center for Homeless Human Rights. 1998. Jiritsu shien jigyô(The Self-Sustenance Support Project). Tokyo: Resource Center for Home-less Human Rights.

Date and place of survey: August 1998, Shinjuku

No. of respondents: 79 (in tentative support centers)

Main questions: age; health; job-seeking activities; obstacles to employ-ment; degree of satisfaction with the center; experience with consult-ants; requests to the center and the self-sustenance support project;socialization with local residents.

5. Kamagasaki Kikitori Chôsa Dan (Kamagasaki Interview Team). 1995.Tsukikage no itaranu sato wa nakeredomo, 54 no deai, 54 no monogatari:Kamagasaki kikitori chôsa, ’94 (Moonlight Reaches Everyone, but. . . . 54Homeless People and 54 Stories: ’94 Interview Survey in Kamagasaki).Osaka: Kamagasaki Kikitori Chôsa Dan.

Date and place of survey: November-December 1994, Kamagasaki


Questions (in order asked): age; place of origin; length of stay in Kama-gasaki; participation in the day laborers’ unemployment insurance pro-gram; current place of stay; health; past hospital stay; use of publicwelfare; employment while ill/injured; work history; family occupation;interest in full-time jobs; use of parks; about Kamagasaki; facilitiesdesired.

6. Sasajima no Genjô wo Akirakani suru Kai (Association to Clarity theCurrent Condition of Sasajima), ed. 1995. Nagoya Sasajima nojukushakikitori hôkokusho (A Report of Interviews with the Homeless in Sasajima,Nagoya). Aichi: Sasajima no Genjô wo Akirakani suru Kai.

Date and place of survey: December 1994, Sasajima


Questions (in order asked): age; place of origin; duration of homelessness;past experience of homelessness; type of housing before first experience

Appendix B 153


of homelessness; reasons for homelessness; sleeping place and reasonsfor choosing the place; cohabitation; health; harassment on the streets;diet and how to secure food; friends to rely on; how to spend dayswithout work; occupation before first experience of homelessness andform of employment; when the respondent began day laboring; whenhe came to Nagoya; means of getting day laboring jobs; experiencewith yoseba; current job; (if currently day laboring) use of public laborexchanges, number of days worked, reasons for unemployment when itoccurs, working conditions, obstacles to employment, use of a publicshelter; participation in the day laborers’ unemployment insurance pro-gram; income and its sources; about junk collecting; experience withwelfare offices; use of public welfare; requests on housing, medicalservice, work, life, government, citizens, private groups, and otherhomeless persons; hope for the future.

7. Sasajima Mondai wo Kangaeru Kai (Association to Think about theSasajima Problem). 2000. 1999 Naogya nojukusha kikitori chôsa hôkoku(Report of Interviews with the Homeless in Nagoya). Chingin to ShakaiHoshô (Wages and Social Security) 1273: 13–26.

Date and place of survey: August 1999, central Nagoya


Questions (in order of appearance in the report): sex; age; sleepingplace and type of sleeping arrangement; place of origin; duration ofhomelessness; past experience of homelessness; temporary experienceoff the streets; harassment on the streets; health; diet and how to securefood; persons to rely on when in trouble; occupation before homeless-ness, form of employment, size of company, period of employment, andplace of employment; longest occupation held, form of employment,size of company, period of employment, and place of employment; typeof housing before homelessness; reasons for homelessness; financialcondition and help-seeking activities before homelessness; current job,income, and number of days worked; sources of income; job-seekingactivities; reasons for unemployment; qualifications acquired; willing-ness to work; conditions for getting off the streets; most pressing prob-lems; hope for the future; requests to government.

8. Hiroshima Rojô Seikatsu wo Akirakani suru Kai and Nojuku Rôdôsha noJinken wo Mamoru Hiroshima Yomawari no Kai, eds. 2002. Hiroshimashi

154 Appendix B


no “hômuresu” II: Dainiji rojô seikatsusha kikitori chôsa (2001-nen 2gatsu 7 nichi) kekka hôkokusho (The “Homeless” in Hiroshima: A Reportof the 2nd Survey of Street Dwellers, February 7, 2001). Hiroshima:Hiroshima Women’s University.

Date and place of survey: February 2001, Hiroshima City


Questions (in order asked): length of sleeping in the place; daytimeplace; sleeping arrangement; cohabitation; how to secure food; currentjob, income, number of days worked, and how job was found; othersources of income; sex; date of birth; place of origin; education; maritalstatus; contact with family; longest occupation held, form of employ-ment, and participation in social insurance programs; duration ofhomelessness; registered residential status; type of housing beforehomelessness, place of residence, occupation, form of employment,participation in social insurance programs, and reasons for having leftthe housing; experience with Kamagasaki; health; use of public welfare;experience of trouble with and kindness among local people; problemson the streets; hope for the future; requests to the city government andthe volunteer group.

Appendix B 155



Appendix C

Interviews

I interviewed a few dozen currently and formerly homeless persons in Shin-juku. Most of them were regulars at some point in time. They are: (1) Mr.Arai, (2) Ms. Asano, (3) Chû-chan, (4) Mr. Fujimori, (5) Mr. Gotô, (6) Mr.Hayashi, (7) Mr. Hiratsuka, (8) Ms. Horie, (9) Mr. Ichizaki (or Itchan),(10) Jimmy (a Japanese male), (11) Ms. Kaneko, (12) Mr. Kobayashi, (13)Mr. Kojima, (14) Mr. Kumamoto, (15) Mr. Kunogi, (16) Mr. Matsumoto(or Matchan), (17) Mr. Nakano, (18) Mr. Odaka, (19) Mr. Okinawa, (20)Mr. Sagawa, (21) Mr. Saitô, (22) Mr. Sakamoto, (23) Mr. Sasaki, (24) Mr.Sano, (25) Mr. Satô, (26) Mr. I. Suzuki, (27) Mr. R. Suzuki, (28) Mr. T.Suzuki, (29) Mr. Takahashi, (30) Mr. Tsuchiya, (31) Mr. Tsuma (or Kuma-san), (32) Mr. Watanabe, (33) Mr. Yamada, (34) Mr. Yoshida, and (35) Ms.“Zabuton.” In addition, I interviewed several currently and formerlyhomeless persons in Shibuya, Ikebukuro, and San’ya. They are Mr. Abe,Mr. Aoki, Mr. Fukuda, Mr. Mr. Ishikawa, Mr. Matsushita, Mr. Uchida, andMr. Wakamatsu.

The common questions I asked are:

(1) individual profile (parents’ occupation, education, and job history); (2)involvement in the movement (what he or she did after losing job/housing,how and why he or she came to Shinjuku [or the other places] to stay,impression of the place, whether he or she mixed with other homeless per-sons, purposes of mixing with other homeless persons, main difficulties inShinjuku, how he or she came to know about the Shinjuku Coalition, whathe or she thought of the group, how and why he or she began participatingin the movement, what he or she has done for/with the group,impressive/unforgettable events, advantages and disadvantages of partici-pation, individual gains and losses, what if without the Shinjuku Coalitionand a movement, what the Coalition and the movement have meant to

157


him/her, and what the encampment meant to him/her); and (3) the future(his/her own future plan, opinion on the self-sustenance support center,other programs recommended for the homeless, requests on the ShinjukuCoalition, and what homeless people can do to help realize recommendedprograms and requests).

I had a few hours-long interview sessions with Takai, or the topleader of the Shinjuku Coalition. I used the same detailed chronologicaltable of movement events that I used for the homeless interviewees. I madethe table, which is longer than 30 pages, as I examined the literature athand, including Takai’s memoir of the first half of the movement historyand the Coalition’s book-length summary of the initial period of the move-ment. As I went over the literature, I marked what seemed to be key eventsand turning points. I also wrote down questions that emerged as I cross-checked materials from different sources. I asked Takai about the keyevents, turning points, differences between his writings and other data, andwhat was missing from his writings. I did not have the same kind of inter-view sessions with the sub-leaders of the group because I spent far moretime with them in the field than with Takai, frequently having a casual con-versation or receiving an explanation as I participated in activities that theyled. I was also invited by the New Left group to which Harada belongedevery time it sponsored collective action or symposium.

Besides the homeless and the non-homeless activists above, I also hadsubstantive conversations (with a loosely structured questionnaire) with afew volunteers who were deeply involved with some of the activities of theShinjuku Coalition. Although they did not participate in movement activi-ties, they took good care of homeless individuals on a daily basis withregard to their mental and physical health, clothing, small cash needs, andinternal relationships. I asked them how and why they became involved inthese activities, what they knew about homeless regulars, how the regularsand others were helping each other, and what obstacles they found in theirown volunteer activities. One of the three was my informant, and I occa-sionally had a long conversation with her both in and outside the field.

158 Appendix C


Appendix D

Chronology of Homeless Policy (inTokyo and Japan)

1992 TMG accepted homeless men in entire Tokyo into winter shel-ters designed for San’ya’s day laborers.

1993 In December, TMG requested the Welfare Managers’ Confer-ence to meet on homelessness.

1994 In January, TMG’s Welfare Bureau and Planning and Coordi-nation Office called for a joint forum for TMG and 23 wardsto discuss and coordinate welfare measures for the homeless.In February, TMG and 23 wards opened a one-month emer-gency shelter in Ota Ward for aged/invalid homeless men, but,in conjunction with forced eviction, TMG unilaterally used theshelter for the homeless in West Shinjuku. A few days later, tostudy policy, TMG and 23 wards formed to the TMG-WardsReview Commission on Street Dwellers, comprised by TMG’sWelfare Bureau, Planning and Coordination Office, and 23wards’ welfare offices. In September, TMG and 23 wardsmade public policy outline proposed by the commission.

Summary of policy outline:1. Emergency measures

(1) TMG subsidizes local emergency services.(2) TMG and 23 wards open winter shelters. (In 1994–95,

two opened in Ota and Shinjuku Wards.)(3) TMG and 23 wards transfer rehab center clients to

elderly homes and other facilities to create space for homeless men. (In 1994–95, space was created for a total of 80 homeless men.)

159


(4) 23 wards and the operator of rehab centers turn some of the singles lodgings into rehab centers. (In 1995, onelodging was converted to a rehab center with a capacity of 60 men.)

(5) TMG and 23 wards study subsidizing lodging house renovation and extension.

2. Promotion of outdoor relief(1) Establishment of a surety system for private apartment

renters.(2) Creation of group homes. (In 1995, two opened for a

total of a dozen homeless men at a given time.)(3) Training of welfare staff. (In 1994–95, a total of 209

welfare office workers received training.)(4) Extension of TMG’s subsidizing period for flophouse

lodgers on welfare.

3. Mid- to long-term measures(1) Creation of more elderly homes.(2) Expansion of rehab and lodging capacities.(3) Provision of short-stay and day services.(4) Creation of a system of comprehensive and professional

services.

4. Other measures to be studiedLong-term, fundamental measures require full-scale research and a comprehensive policy framework, involving housing, employment, education, health and hygiene.

In November, the TMG-Wards Review Commission wasenlarged to include TMG’s hygienic, fire, housing, con-struction, and labor sections as well as 23 wards’ plan-ning, hygienic, and civil engineering sections. In December,TMG and 23 wards opened a winter shelter in ShinjukuWard.

1995 In January, TMG and 23 wards opened another winter shelterin Ota Ward. In April, Shinjuku Ward’s welfare office began tooffer 100 beds in flophouses to homeless welfare recipients.During the year, TMG funded shower installations at 21 med-ical institutions and rewarded hospitals that accepted homelesspatients needing urgent medical attention.

160 Appendix D


1996 In January, in conjunction with forced eviction, TMG openedin Minato Ward a two-month shelter for the homeless in WestShinjuku.

In July, TMG-Wards Review Commission issued its finalreport, recommending self-sustenance support centers as themain long-term homeless measure.

1997 Because wards did not endorse the self-sustenance support cen-ter program, TMG unilaterally implemented a tentative self-sustenance support project in two private lodging houses forthe homeless in West Shinjuku.

1998 Fire broke out in West Shinjuku. TMG opened two tentativeself-sustenance support centers for “fire victims” and otherhomeless men in the locale.

1999 In February, the central government formed the Liaison Con-ference on the Homeless Problem and, in May, announced“immediate countermeasures for the homeless problem,”centering on self-sustenance support centers. In July, theWelfare Ministry formed the Workshop on Self-SustenanceSupport of the Homeless to study policy and trends in home-lessness.

2000 In March, the Workshop on Self-Sustenance Support of theHomeless released the report “On Self-Sustenance Support ofthe Homeless,” announcing the opening of self-sustenancesupport centers across Japan for a total of 1,300 homelessmen at a given time. In November, TMG and 23 wardsopened two year-round support centers in Shinjuku and TaitoWards.

2001 In March, TMG published Japan’s first (public) white paperon homelessness. In April, TMG and 23 wards opened a thirdsupport center in Toshima Ward and, later in the year, starteda self-sustenance support system, consisting of an intake facil-ity, support centers, and group homes. In June, the DemocraticParty of Japan (DPJ) put a homeless assistance bill before law-makers.

2002 TMG and 23 wards opened a fourth support center in SumidaWard. In August, the homeless assistance act was enacted,obliging the central government to devise national policy.

Appendix D 161


2003 In January-February, nationwide homeless research wasconducted as stipulated in the homeless assistance act. InJuly, the government announced national policy.

Summary of national policy:(1) Employment (advocacy activities targeting employers;

provision of job information and counseling; intro-duction of trial employment projects; job training;promotion of involvement of private organizations).

(2) Housing (allocation of more public housing to thehomeless; provision of information on private rentalhousing and surety companies).

(3) Health and medical services (outreach, counseling,referral to welfare offices, and other services byhealth centers; reinforcement of existing medicallaws; partnership among public and private organiza-tions and local residents).

(4) Consultation and instructions (establishment of acounseling and instruction network of welfare facilities; street counseling and referral to available services).

(5) Self-sustenance support projects and other projects to meet individual needs

Support projects provide temporary shelter, food,medical check-ups, and job and daily life managementcounseling. Private organizations are encouraged tooperate these projects. Able-bodied individuals aresubject to employment measures whereas individualsin need of welfare and medical attention are subject tohealth and medical measures. Escapists from main-stream society are subject to counseling to avoid lossof social contact.

(6) Assistance in high-risk districts (provision of sheltersand job counseling; skill training and trial employ-ment for day laborers; street counseling and referral).

(7) Emergency measures and livelihood protection (wel-fare for individuals in need of immediate medicaltreatment; shelters for individuals in need of immedi-ate housing; welfare facilities and lodging houses forindividuals without daily life management skills).

(8) Protection of human rights

162 Appendix D


(9) Improvement in neighborhood environments (patroland confiscation in parks and other public places).

(10) Neighborhood security (reinforcement of patrol and policing).

(11) Partnership with private organizations(12) Others

Prefectural and local governments were required to pre-pare their own homeless programs in accordance withnational policy. The two winter shelters in Tokyo closedpermanently.

Source: Kitagawa (2002); Shinjuku Homeless Shien Kikô (2003); ShinjukuRentaku Kai (1995); TMG (1995); TMG-Wards Review Commission onStreet Dwellers (1996).

Appendix D 163



Notes

NOTES TO CHAPTER ONE

1. In Japan, “Tokyo” can denote: (1) the Tokyo Metropolis, which consistsof twenty-three wards, the Tama area, and the Islands; (2) central Tokyo,which consists of the wards; and (3) an area around Tokyo station. In thisstudy, “Tokyo” refers to the Tokyo Metropolis. I use central Tokyo whenit applies. The population of the Tokyo Metropolis is about 12 million.Nearly 70 percent of the population is concentrated in central Tokyo.

2. I use pseudonyms for all movement groups and non-homeless activiststhat appear in this study.

3. In this study, I follow Tilly’s (1999: 257) definition of a social movement,namely, “a sustained challenge to power holders in the name of a popula-tion living under the jurisdiction of those power holders by means ofrepeated public displays of that population’s worthiness, unity, numbers,and commitment.”

4. In Japan, homelessness generally means sleeping rough, especially in pub-lic places. The homeless assistance act, or more precisely, the Act on Spe-cial Homeless Measures on Self-Sustenance Support and Other Matters(2002), as well as public reports on homelessness adopts this definition,too. This definition is narrower than those in many other developed coun-tries. See Appendix A for definitional and enumerative differences betweenthe United States and Japan.

5. No one knows exactly how many homeless people there are in Japan. TheCensus Bureau counts homeless people in every census-taking year, but theBureau has not published the results since the mid-1960s (Iwata 1995;TMG 1995). The figure here is a most recent estimate of the nationalhomeless population offered by the Ministry of Health, Welfare andLabor—so far the sole enumerator of the population that publishesresults.

6. In a national survey conducted in early 2003 (Health, Labor and WelfareMinistry 2003) and local surveys carried out in major cities in the 1990s,men accounted for 95–98 percent of the homeless interviewed, and

165


roughly one half of them were in their 50s and one quarter in their 60s.The rest were mostly in their 40s. Large-scale surveys in Tokyo (ToshiSeikatsu Kenkyû Kai 2000) and Osaka City (Osaka City University 2000)that collected data on marital status further reported that at least 90 per-cent of the homeless were currently single, with only half of them evermarried.

A number of surveys of the homeless have been conducted to find outthe “current situation” of the aggrieved. The largest one has been that ofthe central government (Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry 2003), whichinterviewed more than 2,000 homeless individuals across the country. Thecharacteristics of the homeless described here and elsewhere in this bookdraw on this and other relatively well-planned surveys available forTokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, and Hiroshima, including the two large-scale sur-veys sponsored by the TMG and the Osaka City Government. See Appen-dix B for a list of these surveys.

7. The origin of the National Federation of Day Laborers’ Leagues may betraced to the early 1970s when San’ya and Kamagasaki had militantorganizers of day laborers, often with New Left backgrounds, who led vic-torious battles with yakuza employers and recruiters who exploited andused sheer violence to control yoseba laborers (Funamoto 1985; Imagawa1987; Kanzaki 1974; Kazama 1993). The upheaval died down shortlywith the end of Japan’s high growth period, but, after a while, someorganizers tried to recreate a labor movement by forming the federation.

8. These data are (1) a couple of journals which anyone interested in home-lessness in Japan would consult (i.e.,Yoseba and Shelter-less), (2) anothercouple of relatively long, annotated lists of currently active groups (Kanô2003; Kitagawa 2003), and (3) my personal observation. During my field-work, I came to know about four dozen groups of various kinds. Many ofthese groups met at the annual conventions of yoseba advocacy groupsand/or signed petitions together.

9. The number will be much larger if one includes yakuza-associated groupsthat run publicly authorized private homeless lodgings, often under thedisguise of a volunteer group. Yakuza-operated lodging houses grew innumber in the 1990s. They have financially relied on welfare benefits thathomeless individuals collect from welfare offices. The use of welfaremoney itself is not problematic; many non-yakuza groups do so, too,when they open a similar lodging facility. Yet, yakuza-run houses havetended to be exploitative, extracting more than a fair share and/or offeringinferior services. The participation of gangsters in shelter business forprofits raised moral and legal questions, and government, criticized bymovement and advocacy groups for the homeless, has recently decided toreview procedures to permit private lodging operation.

10. High turnover among the homeless is not uniquely a Japanese phenome-non. In the United States, Cress and Snow (1996) have referred to a similartendency among 15 homeless movement organizations in eight US citiesthat they studied.

166 Notes to Chapter One


11. The main arenas of struggle of the New Left group were San’ya, Okinawa,and Sanrizuka or the Tokyo International Airport (see Apter and Sawa1984, for instance, for details of the anti-airport struggle in Sanrizuka).The New Left group has a dozen or so members in Tokyo while I was inthe field. Admittedly, the group was not radical. During my research, theSan’ya League contained some members of the New Left group, includingHarada. Earlier in the 1990s, dissatisfied with their “reformism,” radicalelements in the San’ya League created a splinter group (Yamakara, April30, 1996), although it withered away shortly. There was also another radi-cal day laborers’ union in San’ya. The relationship between the San’yaLeague and these two groups was decidedly oppositional.

NOTES TO CHAPTER TWO

1. In Tokyo, the TMG is said to have sent to the mines a monthly averageof about 100 homeless who stayed in welfare facilities (Imagawa 1987:21). In Osaka, between November 1945 and March 1948, the city gov-ernment sent 1,564 homeless people, mostly adult males, to Hokkaidothrough the city’s consultation center for the homeless (Honma 1988:105). In 1971, the facility turned into the welfare center for Kamagasakilaborers.

2. The government debt amounted to more than 100 billion yen by August1945 (Matsuo 1975a: 39).

3. Although the GHQ banned this practice in November 1945, the govern-ment had already spent 26.5 billion yen for this purpose (Y. Andô et al.1977: 256).

4. Between August 1945 and January 1946, banks lent nearly 29 billion yento private firms (MITI 1954: 307).

5. At the time of war end, the government and the military had war materialsworth 57.5 billion yen (Economic Planning Agency 1993: 40–42).

6. The prewar level here refers to an average production index number in1934–1936.

7. Small firms here denote enterprises employing less than 300 workers inmanufacturing, less than 100 in wholesale, and less than 50 in retail andother services.

8. Smaller firms here denote enterprises employing less than 300 workers inmanufacturing, less than 100 in wholesale, and less than 50 in retail andother services.

9. For instance, in 1957, the coverage rate for shittai workers was 15.3 per-cent while the national average was only 1.8 percent (Akiyama, Mori, andYamashita 1960b: 189).

10. Between January and March every year, the group counted the number ofhomeless individuals on several selected spots on Thursday. Each figurehere represents the average number of encounters in the given year.

11. The annual flow of DFI grew six times between 1984 and 1989, fromslightly more than 10 billion dollars to 67.5 billion dollars (Finance Ministry

Notes to Chapter Two 167


1996: 169); that of securities investment grew even more sharply, from57.9 to 1,780 billion dollars in the same period (ibid.: 174–175).

12. In 1986, such imports from North America and Asia stood at 981 milliondollars and 3,451 million dollars, respectively; these figures jumped to2,193 and 5,345 million dollars in 1987 and then kept rising throughoutthe decade (Tokita 1997: 33).

13. Transnational firms here denote Japanese manufacturers that own at least5 overseas affiliates and non-manufacturers that own at least 10 such affil-iates, with a controlling share of at least 25 percent for each.

14. The decline of smaller firms can be seen geographically. In Japan, there arenumerous industrial districts with small firms, which have often developedintricate internal systems of division of labor to serve large firms. However,in the 1980s, many of those districts shrank as some firms relocated theirproduction sites in and out of Japan, often following their parent firms,and others permanently closed their business due to bankruptcy, lack ofsuccessors, or reluctance to continue business (Small and Medium Enter-prise Agency 1997).

15. With immigration for work often prohibited by the government, no oneknows exact numbers of foreign workers, but indicators generally supportupward trends. For example, in 1985, the number of foreign entries toJapan exceeded that of departures by 30,000, but by 1990, the differencegrew to 160,000 (Machimura 1994: 244). The number of foreign workerscharged with illegal status, a more common indicator, was about 2,340 in1983, but by 1988, it rose to more than 14,000 (Umetani 1990: 77).

16. Large redevelopment projects here denote those projects that involved atotal area of at least 25,000 square meters and a building(s) at least 45meters high. Each figure represents the number of projects scheduled forcompletion in a given period.

17. As housing researchers warn, due to poor housing policy, many woodenapartment buildings are quite old and do need renovation or reconstruction(Hayakawa 1979). The vulnerability of these structures became evidentespecially in 1995 when the Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, which victimizedmore than 400,000 households, disproportionately destroyed olderwooden structures (Hayakawa 1997). The problem here, therefore, is notwhether to keep aged wooden structures intact but for what purposes andfor whom such structures are renewed.

18. Since the mid-1970s, public works projects have accounted for 30–40 per-cent of the total investment in construction every year (Miwa 2001: 18).

19. There is a high correlation between the business climate, the number of jobsavailable in public labor exchange, and the number of flophouse occupants.In general, upon business downturn, the numbers of jobs and flophouse occu-pants sharply drop. For San’ya between 1965 and 1991, Umezawa (1995: 79)has statistically shown that this latter correlation was 0.942.

20. In Kamagasaki, unlike in Kotobuki and San’ya, yoseba men who wereallowed into the livelihood protection program were to stay in welfarefacilities instead of flophouses.

168 Notes to Chapter Two


NOTES TO CHAPTER THREE

1. There are of course exceptions. One notable example is an examination ofcounter-movements by the state (Zald and B. Useem 1994). Yet, theyremain exceptions; the state does not constitute a main actor in the RMmodel.

2. In addition, some researchers have noted that large-scale opportunities aresometimes not necessary. Less monumental movements depend on smaller,conjunctional opportunities, such as policy- and group-specific opportuni-ties (Gamson and Meyer 1996; Tarrow 1996). Latecomers to a largeprotest wave may benefit from the process of diffusion rather than large-scale opportunities (McAdam 1996).

3. Piven and Cloward (1992) argued that the minimum condition for protestto occur among the poor was shared grievances and targets. To solve theproblem, Jenkins (1983) proposed a multi-factorial approach in which theresearcher makes clear which variables he or she holds constant. Forinstance, if one assumes that grievances are constant, as political processanalysts do, then, the incidence of movements may be explained bychanges in the political opportunity structure and in indigenous resources.If one holds both grievances and indigenous resources constant, only polit-ical opportunities remain.

4. Blasi (1994: 22, 327) went through articles on homelessness in the Univer-sity of California MELVYL listings of entries in 6,500 academic journalspublished between July 1989 and August 1993, and reported that studiesin medicine accounted for about 37 percent of all articles on homelessness,and psychiatry and psychology, 27 percent. Only around 10 percent of thestudies were in sociology.

5. These figures were derived from the NewsBank Newspaper Index for the1980s, which contained articles from 450 newspapers in the United States.

6. In his study on the effect of incorporation among SMOs into NPOs, Cress(1997) does touch on the issue of how the actions of targets (for example,public agencies) affect SMO trajectories. Of the 15 SMOs in eight UScities, two incorporated themselves to receive concessions from the publicagencies they targeted. Both subsequently collapsed. In his analysis, thestate is treated more as a static entity than as an active participant in themovements.

7. Social movement researchers acknowledge the difficulty in gauging move-ment outcomes for various theoretical and methodological reasons(Giugni, McAdam, and Tilly 1998). Like many other studies, the presentstudy may not make a perfect assessment of outcomes. For example, whileI argue that the Coalition’s anti-eviction campaign helped make the home-less issue widely known, I do so without providing quantitative evidencebecause there is none. However, I believe that my examination of themovement in its historical details, coupled with fieldwork and interviews,has allowed me to make a fairly accurate overall assessment of the impactsof the movement under study. In any event, my bottom line has been as

Notes to Chapter Three 169


stated by Amenta and Young (1999: 41): “the key methodological ques-tion to ask is what might have happened in the absence of the challenger.”

8. This argument is consistent with the experience of homeless persons andtheir collaborators in San Jose (T. Wright 1997). Before the parties began amovement, they created communal ties and networks together.

NOTES TO CHAPTER FOUR

1. Between 1987 and 1990, an annual average of 1,300–1,600 homeless per-sons sought services in the welfare offices in Shinjuku Ward (Nunokawa1993: 9). Until 1992 there were two welfare offices in Shinjuku Ward. Theaverage figures are totals from these offices. In 1992, the two officesmerged and were housed in the Ward Office buildings. A small survey ofwelfare offices in Tokyo indicates that, following the relocation, more andmore homeless people in Shinjuku began to seek aid in Shibuya andToshima Wards (ibid.). In general, it is likely that homeless people, wher-ever they were, moved around in search of more and better services.

2. These shelters opened in Ota Ward between December and March. Somealways remained on the streets, however, either because they preferred thestreets or because the shelters were full. The Winter Struggle was for theseday laborers.

3. The winter shelter in Ota Ward took in a total of 301 homeless personswhile it was open (Metropolitan Government Courant, September 13,1994). Among them, as many as 278 were from Shinjuku Ward (ibid.),and, of the 278 persons, more than 180 were from the Shinjuku stationarea alone (Mainichi, February 24, 1994). Only those who were 65 yearsold and older received regular welfare. After the activists from San’yaaccused the SWG and TMG of temporary sheltering of able-bodied home-less men, they extended the one-week stay to two weeks for those home-less who were not put on welfare (Mitsu 1995).

4. This quotation is from flyers written by Harada during the early days ofbrokerage.

5. This is reflected in one of the flyers homeless persons wrote and handed out topassersby to collect donations. In a flyer dated June 27, 1994, they wrote:

Why Do Tokyo and Shinjuku Beat Us Out?

Because they have responded wrongly to the rapidly changing societyor because they have just watched things go by without doing anything.. . . . The TMG and SWG have been shameless in surrendering them-selves to the pressure from merchants in West Shinjuku—merchantswho are preoccupied with profit making. Urged by clean-up forces, theyhave harassed “laborers sleeping rough.” Against the harassment, wehave decided to organize an association of fighting comrades. . . . . Theytell us to get out of Shinjuku, but to where? We ask this questionbecause we have nowhere else to go. The more important question iswhy the TMG and the ward cannot offer relief. We are not sleeping

170 Notes to Chapter Four


on the cold and hard pavement because we like it. We wake up atfour or five in the morning and walk to West Toyama Park [orTakadano Baba yoseba] to find a job, but only a few of us get a job.We have built the condos in which you live and office buildings inwhich you work. Please give us job opportunities. We want to workto live like humans. We feel fury swelling inside over the TMG andSWG as we see them neglect human rights and dozens of us die fromillness and starvation. We can hardly forgive the governments. Weask you to feel for us and give us a helping hand.

6. For instance, from 1982 through the early 1990s, the local police tookhomeless individuals in the station area to the police station to record theirnames and birth dates and to photograph them with number plates dan-gling around their necks (Kitagawa 2002). The police also collected home-less persons’ fingerprints.

7. When the murder occurred, popular papers sensationalized it, and theEnvironmental Clean-Up Conference, dormant among the homeless sincethe February eviction, revived its exclusionary patrol (Kasai 1999). Thepolice attributed the murder to the patrol team and the Shibuya group bysaying that the groups brought in politics and internal competition in thestation area (Morikawa 1994b). Some homeless persons also understoodthat the homeless population in the area was divided between adherents tothe patrol team and adherents to the Shibuya group (Mitsu 1995). Toavoid widening the cleavage, real or perceived, the two groups apologizedto the homeless in a gathering for not having acted on solidarity, some-thing that they had been advocating so passionately. This incident suggeststhat ideological differences among movement groups do not necessarydeter cooperation. In the present case, the two groups identified a com-mon enemy, the local police, who challenged them with a divide-and-rulestrategy, and took advantage of it.

8. While the absolute number of homeless participants in the rally anddemonstration was not so large, at least one out of three in West Shinjukuparticipated. As we will see in Chapter 6, this event contrasts with similarrallies and demonstrations which took place in the declining period of themovement. In that period, many more homeless people participated butthe events no longer had the worthiness, unity, and commitment that thisone displayed.

9. By this time, one of the non-homeless activists from Shibuya who joinedthe formation of the Shinjuku Coalition had left the Coalition to create asimilar group in Shibuya. In this study, I call this group the Shibuya Coali-tion. The Shinjuku and Shibuya Coalitions cooperated occasionally,although their mutual contact was limited until they and other movementgroups in Tokyo forged an alliance in the spring of 1998.

10. The Livelihood Protection Law does not impose restrictions on the basis ofage, employment status, or residential affiliation. In practice, however, thelaw has been implemented in an extremely limited way since PremierNakasone’s “welfare restructuring.” Currently, welfare offices across Japan

Notes to Chapter Four 171


differ in the types of restrictions they impose and the strictness in executingthose restrictions (Resource Center for Homeless Human Rights 1999). InShinjuku Ward, the welfare office has been reluctant to offer regular wel-fare to homeless individuals below 65 years of age.

11. The Coalition and homeless people went to the local assembly to protestthe negation of mass negotiations. At the assembly, homeless peopleprotested when the chief said that the homeless liked the emergency foodthat the welfare office was offering. A homeless protestor threw a dog bis-cuit at the chief from the gallery, saying “Pick it up and eat it if you thinkwe like it!” (Flyer dated September 20, 1994). Polity members usuallyencourage insurgents to use institutional means to gain political leverage(Piven and Cloward 1979). A former Shinjuku assembly member is a casein point. Sympathetic with the Coalition, he recommended the group tofollow formal procedures to have its demands heard. Yet, as he admittedlater, he came to know how serious the homeless were in demanding massnegotiations only when the homeless man threw a dog biscuit (personalcommunication in August, 2000).

12. These services include: provision of newspapers and magazines that pro-vide job information; free use of the telephone for job seekers/applicants;use of the shelter address as a contact place; loans for travel expenses;rental of construction uniforms; and flexible hours for job seekers (Shin-juku Renraku Kai 1995).

13. The TMG reinforced security measures after it moved to West Shinjuku.These measures include exclusion of protestors from the buildings and aban on having collective negotiations on the premises (Shinjuku RenrakuKai 1995). Thus, the TMG did not treat homeless protestors exceptionallywhen it expelled them. On separate occasions, I personally witnessed secu-rity guards blocking the entrance of two groups of protestors, one againstwater pollution and the other against the alleged intrusion into religiousfreedom. However, the TMG was particular with the homeless in neverfailing to call the police, in uniform, plain-clothes, or in full riot gear.

14. Press reporting of this incident favored the TMG (Mainichi, March 15,1995; Tokyo, March 15, 1995). Following the arrest, the police searchedthe offices of movement groups. One of the Coalition leaders, originallyfrom Shibuya, subsequently died in a motorcycle accident (Mitsu 1995).The ward assembly rejected the petition that the Coalition had submittedand monitored. With these developments, the Coalition decided not to seekthe resumption of mass negotiations with the entire ward government.

15. San’ya for Solidarity with Shinjuku formed in San’ya after the patrol teamsucceeded in mobilizing the homeless in Shinjuku—a success which stimu-lated many activists/advocates in the locale. After the group formed, itcooperated with the Shinjuku Coalition more closely than did the ShibuyaCoalition.

16. It was the first major labor dispute since the San’ya League had becomedormant. The dispute involved a labor camp operator in Saitama Prefec-ture that had threatened day laborers with samurai swords and golf clubs

172 Notes to Chapter Four


into bonded, unpaid labor (Renraku Kai Newsletter, December 3, 1995).The National Federation of Day Laborers’ Leagues participated in thestruggle, and with homeless people from Shinjuku, succeeded in winningthe dispute (S. Honda 1997).

17. Sit-in protestors resisted by tossing eggs and biscuits from behind the barri-cades, but security guards shortly dismantled some of the barricades and apolice squad followed behind them to remove the protestors, sometimesthrowing punches and spraying a fire extinguisher to disperse them (AsahiEvening News, January 24, 1996). The protestors responded by throwingrice, flour, umbrellas, and sake bottles (Asahi, January 24, 1996). Thematch was decided when another police squad stormed in from the otherside of the barricades (ibid.; Mainichi, January 24, 1996). Sandwiched bynumerous policemen, the protestors could only cling harder to each other.During the clash, a couple of TMG employees were injured lightly (Metro-politan Government Courant, January 30, 1996) and a few homeless men,heavily (Flyer dated January 28, 1996). Piven and Cloward (1979) notethat lower-stratum people are seldom violent because they know what willfollow it. Violence is more often invoked by elites. The clash between thesit-in protestors and authorities is an example.

18. A group of welfare workers from Suginami Ward joined the anti-eviction bat-tle in the station area because they “just couldn’t forgive our co-workers, Imean, civil servants of welfare [at the TMG Welfare Bureau] offering a help-ing hand to that forced eviction” (from my interview with the leader, con-ducted in April 1999). Following the eviction, the group filed a petition at theTMG to audit the financing of the moving walkways. It further formed anassociation to work for the homeless on a continuous basis. One of the activi-ties of the association was to provide practical tips to avoid or cope with diffi-cult welfare workers, to stay on welfare without being deprived of it, and togrow out of welfare to more stable housing and work arrangements.

19. The term vagrant as used here corresponds to the Japanese word“furôsha,” which literally means floating person (Glasser 1994: 20). In the1980s, the mass media began to use “nojukusha” (people who sleep rough)or “nojuku rôdôsha” (laborers who sleep rough) after movement groupssuch as the San’ya League protested the pejorative label (Nakane 2001).Then around 1990 the media began to use the Western term “homeless”(ibid.). Indeed, the media used this term most often upon reporting theeviction which occurred in West Shinjuku in February 1994 (e.g., Asahi,February 18, 1994; Nikkei, February 18, 1994; Sankei, February 18,1994). If we expand the historical scope a little, then the use of “homeless”can be considered as a retreat from the earlier terms such as “nojukusha.”Here I focus on the use of “vagrant” in Shinjuku Ward. In the 1980s, Shin-juku Ward Newsletter used this term along with “people without fixedaddress.” Consistently, residents in the ward recognized homeless peoplemost often as vagrants (Imagawa 1987).

20. Liebow’s (1993: 3) description of the homeless fits their counterpart inJapan:

Notes to Chapter Four 173


Many look to the social service system—public assistance, foodstamps, medical care—for help in physical survival. Some wanthelp but cannot get it. Others will not submit to what they seeas demeaning treatment and refuse to purchase public assistanceat the cost of their self-respect. Still others find they cannot dealwith what to them is the arbitrariness and irrationality of socialservice systems. For them, there is not really so much crazinessamong homeless persons as there is in the system ostensiblydesigned to help them.

In Shinjuku or elsewhere in Japan, some homeless persons, despite their eli-gibility, refused to seek welfare for similar reasons. Kariya (2001) adds thata homeless person sometimes refuses welfare because he or she does notwant to be seen as someone who needs help and/or to be kept under admin-istrative supervision. I suggest that whether these persons change theirmind depends in part on who encourages them to take welfare and forwhat purposes. In Shinjuku, partly as a result of the weekly struggle at thewelfare counter, the number of consultation cases at the local welfare officerapidly increased after February 1994. From 618 in April, it doubled to1,269 in May (Shinjuku Renraku Kai 1995: 10–11). In August, it furthergrew to 3,452 (ibid.). The annual total number was 2,199 in 1992 and3,708 in 1993 (ibid.). It then jumped to 8,838 in August 1994 (ibid.). In1992 the number of recipients of regular welfare was 449, but it subse-quently increased to 1,316 in 1994 and 1,502 in 1995. In 1995, the Coali-tion helped 325 homeless persons to gain regular welfare (Inaba 1998).

NOTES TO CHAPTER FIVE

1. This is not to say that the police later stopped surveillance of the Coalition.At least, the police were always present when the group sponsored a rally,demonstration, or any other event for the homeless, indoor or outdoor.

2. About 50 homeless persons attended the first trial session (Flyer datedMay 10, 1996). Although the number of homeless attendants declinedover time (Shinjuku Danbôru Mura Tsûshin, March 30, 1997), currentlyand formerly homeless people continued to present themselves at the courtproceedings to support the leaders and/or monitor the proceedings withregard to the “1.24” struggle.

3. As Harada made it clear in his letters to the homeless in the encampment(Flyers dated May 15, 1996), while in the Tokyo Detention Center, he con-centrated his energy on disconfirming the TMG’s forced eviction andproving the legitimacy of the anti-eviction struggle. Takai prepared amonograph which traced the path to the “1.24” struggle, emphasizing theinability of evictions to solve the homeless problem. These efforts con-tributed to the victory in the first trial (Hanrei Jihô 1997; Hiyatoi ZenkyôNews, April 1, 1997; Shinjuku Danbôru Mura Tsûshin, March 30,1997;Yamakara, March 10, 1997). Yet, it added little to the ongoing movement

174 Notes to Chapter Five


partly because it did not attract substantive media or academic attentionand partly because it did not fundamentally change the approach of theTMG and other opponents to the Coalition.

4. Especially during the winter, after Christmas and year-end parties, stu-dents and business men, heavily drunk, hassled homeless persons. Some ofthe homeless, too, interrupted, if they did not actually harass, passersby bygetting drunk and/or sleeping outside the village boundaries (Flyer datedDecember 8, 1997).

5. According to one of the Coalition’s regulars at that time, donations frompassersby declined as they witnessed the homeless drinking and fighting inthe encampment.

6. Popular informal jobs among the homeless were scalping and wholesalevending of used magazines or telephone cards. Scalping was subject to sea-sonal fluctuation because concerts and other events concentrated in thespring. Wholesale vending became very competitive as the homeless popu-lation increased (Hiyatoi Zenkyô News, August 13, 1996). Kitagawa(2001) observes that the two groups of magazine venders opposed eachother because both sold magazines within the same vicinity rather thansell them to retailers elsewhere.

7. For instance, when Takai was inside his shack, some homeless took hisshoes away. They also damaged his shack while he was not in. Takaiemphasized that homeless persons who harassed him did so rathertimidly. He also said, however, that he would have run away if they hadphysically attacked him. There are at least a couple of notable episodes inSan’ya’s history in which activists completely withdrew from movementactivities as soon as they lost trust among the day laborers. In oneepisode, activists, after years of joint struggle with the day laborers, wereaccused by the laborers for their alleged embezzlement of donated money(Imagawa 1987; Kanzaki 1974). In the other, more recent episode, theleader of a day laborers’ union was stabbed by a homeless man, who inthis way tried to demonstrate loyalty to his boss, who was also homeless(Mizuta 1993). Although there may have been other important reasonsas well, the union leader disbanded the union after the incidence, framedthe homeless as poor victims of lack of familial and policy attention, andstarted a non-profit organization (NPO) to rescue the victims in San’ya.These episodes were more serious than the episode in West Shinjuku, butthey nonetheless suggest that the way the aggrieved treat their externalcollaborators significantly affects how the collaborators treat theaggrieved.

8. Harada identified himself not simply as an activist and member of a NewLeft group but also as a day laborer, since he had worked as one for a longtime. According to a veteran observer of New Left activists, Harada wasone of the few young-generation activists in yoseba who became a daylaborer for the purpose of organizing the unorganized—something thatoften happened in the earlier decades. This partly explains his verbal abil-ity to attract manual workers at the bottom of society.

Notes to Chapter Five 175


9. Harada was also adored by homeless men who were around his age.Although I did not endeavor to collect data on individual activists’ reputa-tions among the homeless, I noticed that virtually none of the homeless Icame to know said anything negative about Harada, although the samedid not apply to Takai and the Coalition leadership in general.

10. According to one of my informants who knew Takai from the old village,homeless persons often regarded Takai as an influential third person withinthe communal context. For Takai, the purpose of living with the homelessin the encampment was to organize homeless people into movement activi-ties and to “know who was who” among the homeless.

11. The TMG sheltered a total of 79 homeless men, about half of whom werefrom Shinjuku (Flyer dated March 3, 1996). Among the 79, 56 found jobs;19 of them did so without the help of the shelter and the rest through locallabor exchanges. Among those who did not find jobs, 12 “left voluntarily”before the shelter closed and 11 remained until the closure. The men whoremained were subsequently transferred to a lodging house for a one-month stay (Metropolitan Government Courant, March 26, 1996).

When the TMG opened the Minato shelter, it said it would conductfollow-up research but later canceled it, saying “If we trace them, thehomeless will be tied to their past” (Mainichi, July 18, 1996). Tracing ofthe homeless by movement groups found that many ended up in the streetsagain because the TMG had introduced highly problematic labor camps(Hiyatoi Zenkyô News, April 20, 1996). “Successful” job seekers alsoobtained precarious hotel and security jobs (Metropolitan GovernmentCourant, March 19, 1996), thus remaining vulnerable to homelessness.The operator of a small construction firm who hired 16 homeless men fromthe Minato shelter said that 13 of them quit within a time on the job(Mainichi, July 18, 1996). He said, “TMG officials just wanted to get thehomeless out of the shelter and didn’t think of their future. Unless theybecome more careful, the same problem will repeat again” (ibid.).

12. This particular neighborhood had already been given a rehab center forthe homeless, which was converted from a lodging house in accordancewith the policy outline of the TMG-Wards Review Commission. At leastsome of the local residents opposed the TMG’s plan of opening anotherhomeless facility because they were afraid of homeless men. But as agroup the residents accused the TMG for unfairly trying to concentratethese facilities in their neighborhood and for not having informed theresidents of the plan before the TMG tried to implement it (Yamakara,July 15, 1997).

13. During the transitional period, Takai frequently issued warnings andinstructions about the condition of the encampment. In particular, headvised the homeless to stop drinking and causing trouble for other people,including passersby, so that infighting and harassment did not occur in thefirst place (e.g., Flyer dated December 4, 1997). He also told the homelessto refuse TMG’s cleaning up efforts on an individual basis if they wanted todo so.

176 Notes to Chapter Five


14. Following the forced eviction, harassment and violence increased outsideShinjuku, too. In a park near San’ya, local park staff and 150 residentsthreatened 30 homeless persons with saws and choppers, saying theywould evict them (Flyer dated February 21, 1996). Along Sumida River,junior high school students attacked homeless people with stones and fire-works. In Kita Ward, several young men killed a homeless man who was ina park (Tokyo, August 10, 1996). They said, “We hit him because he wasdirty. We just wanted to solve a problem on behalf of theneighborhood”(Asahi, July 23, 1996). In Yoyogi Park in Shibuya, severalyoung men killed another homeless man (Flyer dated June 2, 1996).

NOTES TO CHAPTER SIX

1. A few homeless men who initiated a committee in the winter shelter inShinjuku Ward expressed such a view of the leadership during my inter-views with them. The shelter was a loose structure with few safety con-cerns. For instance, there was no light to guide to the bathroom and nohandrail on staircases. As a result, a homeless man was seriously injured.The leadership showed no interest in this and other problems homelesspeople encountered in the shelter. A number of other homeless personswho once closely worked with the leadership also pointed out that theactivists were like “bureaucrats” in neglecting urgent needs of the home-less and making arrangements with public officials that did not reflecttheir opinion.

2. Takai undermined indigenous mobilization by framing the reform effortsof the homeless at the winter shelters as a total failure despite the fact thatthey did achieve improvements in the existing shelter system. In addition,in the final period of the movement, the Coalition leader as well as Irinoused various means to discourage substantive participation by the home-less. These means include: intimidation of ideas and activities initiated bythe homeless, use of violent language against homeless individuals whothey thought blocked their way, and concealment of certain gatheringsfrom the mass.

3. To secure the tentative support centers, the Welfare Bureau framed thehomeless in West Shinjuku as fire victims, who deserve emergency reliefand shelter. This designation indicates the difficulty in opening “home-less” facilities in Tokyo as well as the inability of the TMG to persuadeneighborhoods of the desirability of these facilities. The neighborhood inNorth Shinjuku that had refused to have another homeless facilityaccepted one of these tentative support centers under the condition that itwould close in six months. The other tentative support center opened atthe site of the winter shelter in Shinjuku Ward.

4. Before the policy-making unit formed, the five cities had requested thecentral government to offer three things: (1) legislation permitting localgovernments to evict the homeless (only Kawasaki City did not requestthis) (Osaka Yomiuri, March 10, 1999); (2) grants-in-aid to help finance

Notes to Chapter Six 177


local homeless measures; and (3) employment measures centering on daylaborers. In addition, the TMG had insisted that the government adoptTokyo’s support center program as a national model. In one way oranother, the government met all those requests except (1).

5. Violent incidents that the leadership ignored included those in whichhomeless men hit homeless women. During my fieldwork, at least severalhomeless persons in Central Park were seriously injured as a result ofinternal violence of which the leadership was well aware.

6. Because the Coalition leadership was not concerned about small-scaleevictions and confiscations, there is no record of these incidents. I came toknow that these exclusionary practices occurred very frequently as Ipatrolled Shinjuku with homeless persons every Sunday. During my field-work, there were at least several small-scale evictions in Central Park. Inaddition, a close observer has noted that, after the Coalition evacuated thestation area, exclusion “erupted” in Shinjuku (Yamakara, June 27, 1998).

7. The closed weekly meeting in a church was full of technical terms andissues related to policy. While few homeless regulars understood them, noone bothered to elaborate or ask for explanation. Because Takai directlyor indirectly excluded from the meeting those homeless individuals whocould be critical of leadership decisions, homeless participants seldomraised questions about the way in which the meeting was operated or theway in which policy was discussed.

8. Irino was at least partially responsible for this development. While he wasin charge of welfare and patrol activities, he exerted poor leadership inthese activities. Rather than take leadership and try to improve the situa-tion, Irino complained about participants in these activities for not doingwhat he expected them to do. He created a tense, even hostile atmospherein the Coalition’s regular activities. Irino performed his role poorly partlybecause he became tired of patrol and collective application for welfare.He wanted to do something new. In fact, even before Takai joined anNPO, Irino formed another with a leader of the Shibuya Coalition—anNPO which was designed to help the homeless with legal, medical, andother professional advice (Inaba 2001). Irino eventually became much lessinvolved in regular activities this way.

9. With regard to welfare, the leader wrote (Flyer dated September 8, 2002):“the Coalition will help you, but it is basically your own responsibility totake care of health and welfare application.” Concerning employment, hewarned (Flyer dated September 8, 2002): “We will continue to work toimprove the support centers . . . , but you should know that it’s not easy toget off the streets through the centers.” As for eviction, he advised (Flyerdated July 28, 2002): “If you don’t want eviction, clean up after yourself,avoid trouble with others, and watch for fire and infighting.”

10. The Shinjuku shelter accepted about 100 “aged and/or invalid” homelessmen at a given time. The Ota shelter accepted 300 homeless men of allkinds at a given time. The latter allowed a two-week stay per person, andwas always full.

178 Notes to Chapter Six


11. A total of three support centers accepted 220 homeless men at a given time.The centers served only a fragment of the homeless population in Tokyo—a fragment consisting of able-bodied, middle-aged homeless men, whoseemed capable of taking full-time jobs and ready to get off the streets.Indeed, the employment rate was high in the centers. For example, the onein Shinjuku Ward recorded an 84 percent employment rate in February2001 (Flyer dated April 8, 2001) because the center accepted recently dislo-cated homeless men, physically and spiritually ready to go back to the sta-tus of housed employees.

At the same time, close observers estimated that, while many foundemployment, about 20 percent of all center users reached the final housingstage (Social Courant, August 4, 2001). (This means that many droppedout or languished in the centers because of lack of housing services.) Advo-cates also found that many successful job seekers ended up in the streetsagain (Fukushi Shinbun, July 2, 2001; Inaba 2001). In fact, no one knowshow many of the successful job seekers retained their jobs and how manyof the successful graduates of the centers retained their jobs and housing.All tentative support centers in the previous years performed poorly as themajority of the homeless ended up in the streets again. Since the year-roundsupport centers were little different from the tentative ones, it is safe to saythat the new centers performed poorly as the old ones.

12. Another reason for the popularity of these events was that the Allianceserved food to every participant. In the early days, the Coalition leadershipoffered food as a means to facilitate relations with the homeless. Now, foodwas used to attract hungry homeless men.

13. The clause did not explicitly give local authorities a legal right to evict thehomeless, but it did refer to “normalization of public places” in line withpolicy development. When the bill was introduced, the groups opposing ordoubting the bill witnessed Osaka city authorities setting up a large tempo-rary shelter to evict the homeless in the locale. The groups believed that, ifthe bill passed, such practices would be rampant in Japan (Zenkokukon2001).

14. Among other leaders of the Coalition, Takai tended to make dubiousclaims about the future of homeless policy and the movement. Takaieven created a fictitious national organization called “All Japan Coali-tion of Poor People” when he began promoting the passage of a home-less assistance act (Shinjuku Renraku Kai News, September 17,2000)—although he soon put down the banner because he receivedmuch criticism from other non-homeless activists, including Harada. Inmy analysis, Takai engaged in these activities because he was farthestfrom the homeless constituency and needed to use much framing to fillthe distance.

15. Takai participated in the struggle when younger, before he came to San’ya;Harada continued to participate, at least while I was in the field. Hebrought homeless persons to the site of the struggle when major mass gath-erings took place at the site.

Notes to Chapter Six 179



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OTHER SOURCES

Flyers issued weekly or semiweekly by Shinjuku Renraku Kai between February1994 and March 2003. Earlier flyers were not available when I began myresearch, but later became available at the Resource Center for HomelessHuman Rights at Shin-Daikyo Manshon 304, Daikyo-cho 3, Shinjuku-ku,Tokyo. Flyers issued between 2000 and 2003 were partially available athttp://www.d9.dion.ne.jp/~rojuku/topi4.html

The original version of the map of Japan is available in Nihon zenzu, hakuchizu,jiyûchô (Free, Blank Maps of Japan), published by Mikuni Shuppan, Tokyo,in 2005. The map of Shinjuku appears in Tokyo Area Guide, 2005 Vol.1,published by Mais Co., Ltd., Tokyo, in 2004. The map shows Shinjuku as itwas on December 10, 2004.

204 Bibliography


AAct on Special Homeless Measures on

Self-Sustenance Support andOther Matters, 126

Alliance of the Homeless in Tokyocampaign supporting year-round support

centers, 133formation by Shinjuku Coalition (1998),

122reasons for support by other movement

groups, 122–123sponsorship of mass talks for homeless,

133targeting of the central government, 135

Anti-Shinjuku Coalition groups, 104–105Author’s fieldwork and research data, 18–19

BBank of Japan, 45Brokerage

defined, 69effects of, 69, 95

Bubble economy, 45, 49Businesses

harassment of the homeless, 97–98hiring of security guards by, 105influence exerted on homeless policy, 90,

93, 95

CCardboard Village, 94, 99, 100, 103Central Park, 122, 127–129Certification, defined, 117

Chiyoda Ward, 70Chuo Ward, 42Clean Party, 126, 135Collective action

WUNC (worthiness, unity, number, andcommitment), 82, 134

Collective kitchen, 10, 76, 81Conference for Promoting Street Dwellers’

Policy, 108Conference of Welfare Office Managers, 73Construction industry, 6, 36, 45–47, 51,

103, 110

DDay labor, 3, 6, 7–11, 14, 19, 26, 29–36, 39,

48–51, 72–74, 77, 87, 93, 135,145

Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ)introduction of a homeless assistance bill,

125–126, 135–136Diet, 79, 81, 126, 135Direct foreign investment (DFI), 38, 40, 43,

167n11Disruption, defined, 89Downsizing, 37–38, 47

EEconomic globalization, 23, 36–38, 40, 47,

52

FFlophouse, 7, 10, 25, 31, 35–36, 46, 48–49,

50–51, 90

205

Index

The letter n following a page number indicates an endnote.


GGeneral Headquarters of the Allied Forces

(GHQ), 24, 26Gentrification, 23, 36, 40, 42, 46, 49, 51

HHomeless assistance act, 18, 118, 126,

130–131, 133, 135–136Homeless individuals

“1.24” battle, 93–94, 97angry reactions to eviction, 77–80, 82attitudes toward welfare, 173n20average number seeking welfare services,

170n1census-taking of, 165n5changing orientation from collective to

individual action, 136changing relations between aggrieved and

collaborators, 143collective action among, in the 1980s, 61concerns over activists’ neglect, 177n1confiscation of personal belongings, 77considered as “vagrants,” 173n19contradictions in Takai’s statements to,

137cooling relations with movement

leadership, 118creation of homeless encampments,

71–72criticisms of leadership by, 136–137declining participation in Coalition activ-

ities, 128direct negotiation with officials following

certification, 118, 120, 140disruptive vs. institutional tactics, 89distrust of TMG officials, 99effects of repression on, 97–98, 101employment and housing at support cen-

ters, 179n11employment by GHQ, 26fighting to preserve the old Cardboard

Village, 94first major rally in Tokyo, 82–83first national mobilization of, 4flyers written and handed out by, 170n5formation of SMOs by, 62forms of mutual help, 79framed as “laborers” instead of

“vagrants,” 16frequency of small-scale evictions and

confiscations, 178n6

Harai and Takada, physical separationof, 102

Harai and Takada, return to station area,104–107

homeless mobilizations in U.S. cities,58–59

housing and employment goals, 79–80importance of encampment survival,

87–88increasing confrontation and competition

among, 103–104informal jobs among, 175n6internal violence by, 178n5in U.S. shelters, 120labor exchanges and, 176n11labor recruitment centers, 26loss of safe encampments, 136lost sense of camaraderie with leadership,

129as mainly middle-aged and older single

men, 7, 165n6Minato Ward shelter, 98–99, 105–107,

119new Cardboard Village, creation of, 99new Cardboard Village and harassment

by passersby, 103, 175n4new designation as “street dwellers,” 95as non-yoseba men, 7–9old Cardboard Village and consumer

space, 103patrols in homeless encampments, 79police presence at homeless events,

174n1postwar black markets and, 26as the primary movement actors and

beneficiaries, 146prioritization of spatial maintenance, 109proposed eviction of “socially misfit”

homeless, 125–126reactions of officials to, 81recognition as legitimate claimants of

rights, 138recognizing the benefits of popular

education, 145regarded as “unorganizable,” 4resistance to dispersion and containment

strategies, 71, 75services offered in winter shelters,

172n12spatial safety and maintenance as a major

concern, 138

206 Index


Takai’s direct and indirect exclusions of,178n7

therapeutic approach to their problems,61, 169n4

treatment as garbage, 76–77, 80treatment by police, 98, 171nn6–7treatment of activists by, 175n7violence and, 173n17weakening of collective benefits, 98welfare benefits of, 170n3yoseba day laborers and, 7youth violence against, 114–115, 177n14

Homeless movementattorneys and, 12different backgrounds of members, 11formation of new groups in 1990s, 11high turnover in, 166n10indigenous groups, 6, 11non-profit organization (NPO), services

offered, 12outcomes pursued by, 62proxy groups, 1, 6relational perspective on, 5, 14–15relations between the aggrieved and

supporters, 63–64religious organizations and, 12–13Rengo Osaka and, 12similarity in services provided by groups,

11–12Homelessness

characteristics of, in 1990s, 34–35declining number of flophouses, 49defined, 165n4and economic globalization during

1980s, 23effect of urban redevelopment and gentri-

fication, 40–41, 43, 46establishment of welfare facilities, 25invisibility of, in late 1960s, 28, 33karikomi (“hunting”) teams, 25Livelihood Protection Law of 1946,

24–25, 88, 171n10opening of homeless shelters, 17–18at outbreak of Korean War, 29in postwar Japan, 7, 20, 23–24postwar “vagrants’ camps,” 25and rise in commercial and residential

land prices, 42role of the government in, 42–45slum clearance in 1960s, 33surge of, in 1990s, 2, 7, 20, 23, 51

“tent hotels” operated by TMG, 25–26trends contributing to, in 1980s, 36welfare restructuring in 1980s, 46, 50–51during World War II in Japan, 23–24

Housing Loan Corporation, 28, 43–44

IIkebukuro group, 1Intensive actions, 91–93, 108, 111, 132Iranian immigrants, 13–14, 74, 75

JJapan

change to casual labor in 1950s and1960s, 29–30

Councilors’ Office on Internal Affairs,125

declining position of primary workers, 37development of a national homeless

policy, 125Diet, 79, 81, 126, 135direct foreign investment (DFI) in manu-

facturing, 38, 40, 43, 167n11economic recovery in mid-1950s, 27–28escalating inflation in late 1940s, 29globalization and its effects, 37–40homelessness during World War II,

23–24increase in female workers, 39–40investment in public works projects,

168n18Korean War and economic recovery, 27Nakasone administration, economic poli-

cies of, 42–44, 46, 50postwar economy, 26–27postwar homelessness, 7, 20, 23–24Premier Nakasone’s “welfare restructur-

ing,” 171n10Premier Obuchi, 125recession and first oil crisis (1973), 34recession of 1992, 7, 23, 45, 51rise in foreign workers, 40, 168n15second oil crisis (1979), 37shift from manufacturing to service econ-

omy, 37–38shittai workers, 31–33, 167n9tenement housing in 1950s and 1960s,

30–31Japan Housing Corporation, 28Japan National Railways, 43Japan Railways (JR) Shinjuku station, 1

Index 207


homeless encampment at, 71–72

KKama Coalition, 9, 18, 90, 135Kamata, Satoshi, 99Karikomi, 25Kawasaki City

Kotobuki League and, 10Keidanren, 43Keio Plaza Hotel, 71Keio Railways, 105Kita Ward, 1Korean immigrants, 48Korean War, 27, 29Kotobuki, 6–7, 9–10, 31, 34, 48–49, 51Kurasawa, Susumu, 99

LLabor and Economic Affairs Bureau, 101Labor camps, 8–9, 31, 35, 48–49, 51, 73,

107Liaison Conference on the Homeless Prob-

lem, 125Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)

treatment of homelessness as a nationalproblem, 125–126, 135

Livelihood Protection Law of 1946, 24–25Livelihood Protection Law of 1950, 29Livelihood protection program

decreasing number of recipients in 1980s,44–45

limitations of, 32–33Lower-stratum movements, 5, 55, 60, 89,

142, 144

MMay Day, 91, 101, 111, 133, 136Media, 7, 12, 20, 23–24, 33, 35–36, 38, 48,

54, 65, 69, 73, 76–78, 83,93–94, 98, 105, 111, 114, 118,120–121, 123–125, 142, 145

Micro electronics (ME) automation systemsintroduction of, 37spread of, 43, 47

Minato Ward shelter, 98–99, 105–107, 119Ministry of Health, Welfare and Labor, 135,

165nn5–6Mitsui Building, 71Movement leadership

benefits of rotating leadership positions,144

long-term commitment as a resource, 144need for creating a democratic internal

structure, 143–145recognition of the benefits of popular

education, 145

NNagoya City Government, 11Nakasone administration

economic policies of, 42–44, 46, 50“welfare restructuring” by, 171n10

National Federation of Day Laborers’Leagues, 93, 135, 172n16

achievements of, 9formation of, 9, 166n7

National health insurance program, 29, 32New Left group, 11, 14, 143, 167n11Newspapers

reaction to “1.24” battle, 99Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Public

Corporation, 43Non-profit organization (NPO), 12, 131

OOil crisis, 11, 34, 37Osaka City Government, 90Ota Ward, 42–43, 76, 82, 86, 92, 121–122

PPatrol team, 10, 13–16, 69, 73–74, 76–77,

79–83Philippines

role of Philippine Catholic Church in Yel-low revolution, 120

Planning and Coordination Office, 99, 101Police, 10, 70, 79, 81, 85–86, 92, 94, 97–98,

100–101, 105, 107, 125, 128,135

Political process perspectiveconditions leading to movement emer-

gence, 57, 59decline of movements, 58–59emphasis on macro political variables, 57goals and tactics in movement mainte-

nance, 58interpretive framing of issues and oppor-

tunities, 59mass-based movements of challengers, 60role of state as a target of action, 58static conceptualization of the state,

59–60

208 Index


Popular education, 145“Protest policing,” 101Public assistance, 24–25, 29, 32–33, 36, 44,

50–51, 95Public employment program, 3, 26, 87

RRecession, 7, 23, 29–31, 34, 40, 45–46,

50–51, 110Relational mechanism

concept defined, 15Relational perspectiveexplanation of, 5, 14–15relational mechanism, 65as a revision of the political process

model, 64–65Rengo Osaka, 125

recognition of homeless movement, 12Rent Control Order, 44Repression, defined, 97Resource mobilization (RM) perspective, 5

crucial resources for lower-stratum challengers, 57

lower-stratum movements in the U.S.,55

movement formation and economic affluence, 53–54

neglect of the state’s role in SMOs, 55–56polity members vs. challengers, 56role of the state as a main actor, 169n1SMOs compared to mass movements,

55social movements as rational responses to

the environment, 54weaknesses in the model, 55

Road Traffic Act, 76

SSan’ya for Solidarity with Shinjuku, 92, 99,

122formation of, 172n15

San’ya League, 122–123collective protests following “1.24”

battle, 99–100efforts at tackling labor issues, 73reaction to Winter Struggle (1992–93),

74–75reframing of issues regarding the

homeless, 80–81yakuza recruitment firms and, 73

San’ya Workers Welfare Hall, 73

Sanrizuka strugglefarmer opposition to construction of

Tokyo International Airport,143

participation by Takai and Harada, 143Shack dwellers, 24, 72Shibuya Coalition, 122–123

collective identity building by, 82differences with the San’ya League, 74employment program started by, 130formation of, 171n9labor issues among Iranian immigrants, 74reaction to Winter Struggle (1992–93),

74–75shortcomings in mobilizing homeless

protests, 81Shinjuku Coalition

”1.24” battle, 93–94, 97abandonment of public guarantee of

employment and livelihood, 131activists and solidarity building, 83–84certification by the TMG’s Welfare

Bureau, 109, 117, 119, 136,138, 140

change of mission, 1changing emphasis on promoting policy,

108–110closeness to becoming a polity member,

132collective benefits produced by, 90–92,

94–95communal mobilization in, 4–5, 13communal protection goal, abandonment

of, 130conditions fostering transgressive

mobilization, 116, 139cultivation of ties with public officials,

118, 121, 124decisions made without input from

homeless, 138disruptive vs. institutional tactics, 89dissociation from the Central Park

encampment, 127–128diverging goal between leadership and

homeless, 98effects of repression on, 97–98, 101emergence in West Shinjuku, 4employing tangible vs. intangible

resources, 96evacuation of station area to Central

Park, 122

Index 209


failures in achieving its goals, 89–90final period (1997–2002), 16–17, 21first Winter Struggle (1994–95), 92formation of, 1, 10, 83formation of the Alliance of the Homeless

in Tokyo, 121goals of, 1Harada, 14, 17–18, 78, 83, 87–88, 91,

94, 98, 102, 104–107, 111, 114,126–127, 135, 143, 174n3,175n8, 176n9, 179n15

homeless involvement in, 13initial period (1994–96), 16, 21“intensive actions,” 91–93Irino, 14, 18, 83, 99, 124, 131, 135,

178n8key demands of, 92mass negotiations with TMG, 69–70,

85–88media attention on anti-eviction

campaign, 94meetings with TMG and SWG on

support center program,106–107

new Cardboard Village, creation of, 99old Cardboard Village and consumer

space, 103operational goals and tactics, 16, 89original goals, 83relationship between disruptive tactics

and gains, 132relationship of its activists to the homeless,

3–4, 20requests for disbanding of the new

Cardboard Village, 107–108San’ya League and, 13, 167seeking guarantees of public jobs, 88separation of movement activities from

communal life, 129shift away from communal protection,

109signature-collecting drives, 92social and political gains of, 5splits within, 4structure of, 13SWG, mass negotiations with, 69–70,

85–88Takai, 14, 17–18, 63, 78, 83, 87–88, 91,

94, 98, 102, 104–108, 111,113–114, 120–121, 124–128,131, 134–138, 143, 174n3,

175n7, 176nn9–10, 176n13,178n9, 179n15

transitional period (1996–97), 16–17, 21use of disruptive tactics, 3use of institutional/non-institutional tac-

tics, 98weak and distant relations with home-

less, 127–129Shinjuku Station Area, 70–72, 75, 91Shinjuku Ward Government (SWG)

clean-up movement of, 15Environmental Clean-Up Conference for

the Shinjuku Station Area, 70formation of Anti-Vagrants Conference,

70large-scale eviction of homeless in 1994,

69–70relocation of TMG headquarters, 70, 75

Shittai workers, 31–33, 167n9Social movement, defined, 165n3Social movement organizations (SMOs)

assessing movement outcomes, 66collective action and disruptiveness, 63collective and selective benefits, 66–67compared to mass movements, 55competition among SMOs for resources,

54formation of, by homeless individuals, 62group coalitions within a single move-

ment, 122–123initial mobilization process, 68mixed movements, 67outcomes pursued by, 62resource requirements of, 62role of the state in, 55–56trajectories of, 169n6

Spaceeffects of spatial overlapping of groups,

104importance to movement groups,

102–103prioritization of spatial maintenance by

homeless, 109, 118repressive narrowing of, 103

Students, 11, 54Subcontractors, 29–30, 39, 45–47Support center, 17, 106–110, 112–113, 115,

117–138

T“Tent hotels,” 25–26

210 Index


Tokyogeographic extent defined, 165n1homeless encampments in, 4rise of homelessness in, 2, 7

Tokyo Detention Center, 102Tokyo International Airport, 143Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG), 1, 3

actions by, following “1.24” battle,98–100

attempts at legitimation, 99Conference for Promoting Street

Dwellers’ Policy, 108Construction Bureau and eviction of

homeless, 76–77, 83, 91, 98–99,105, 113–114

Governor Aoshima, 93–94Governor Suzuki, 70–71harassment of the homeless by, 97–98introduction of labor camps, 176n11large-scale eviction of homeless in 1994,

15, 69–70, 76police repression and arrests of protes-

tors, 100–101public employment program in San’ya,

87reaction to Winter Struggle (1992–93),

74–75, 170n2repression by, during and following

“1.24” battle, 97–98, 101response to homeless encampments

(1993–94), 72–73response to threatened interests in West

Shinjuku, 84role as a movement participant, 5role in urban redevelopment, 44services offered in winter shelters,

172n12stoppage of confiscation, 91TMG-Wards Review Commission on

Street Dwellers, 83, 85, 106,108, 115, 117, 122, 176n12

treatment of homeless protestors, 85Welfare Bureau, 86, 92, 98, 106,

108–109, 112–113, 115, 117,119, 121–122, 133–134, 177n3

Transgressive mobilization, 68, 75, 110,116, 139

UUrban redevelopment, 20, 23, 36, 40,

43–44, 47, 52

Urban Redevelopment Act, 43

VVagrants, 16, 25, 70–72, 75, 80, 94, 95Vagrants’ camps, 25

WWard Chiefs’ Conference, 107Waterfront Development Project at Tokyo

Bay, 44Welfare Bureau (TMG), 86, 92, 98, 106,

108–109, 112–113, 115, 117,119, 121–122, 133–134, 177n3

Welfare office, 11, 44, 50, 70, 73, 76–79,82, 86, 89, 91–99, 105,107–109, 111, 129, 134, 141

West Shinjuku movement, final periodcampaign for year-round support centers,

133–135certification of the Shinjuku Coalition by

the TMG’s Welfare Bureau, 117,119–120, 136, 138, 140

Coalition’s abandonment of disruptive,direct action tactics, 118

collective gains achieved, 132–133, 136communal protection goal, abandonment

of, 130community-based mobilization, aban-

donment of, 140conditions fostering transgressive mobi-

lization, 139developing a workable national homeless

policy, 133, 135DPJ’s introduction of a national homeless

assistance bill, 125–126effects of the state’s repression, 142enactment of the Act on Special Home-

less Measures, 126exclusionary practices and Coalition

leadership, 128failure to use disruptive tactics and inten-

sive actions, 132fire in cardboard houses of homeless

(1998), 121–122gains generated for the homeless by

movement leadership, 141–142homeless assistance act, 133, 135–136light jobs and interim housing goal,

abandonment of, 130officials’ attitude toward Coalition lead-

ership and homeless, 124–125

Index 211


period of final decline (2002), 136prioritization of spatial maintenance by

homeless, 118as a proxy movement, 132public guarantee of employment and

livelihood, abandonment of,131

reasons for support of Tokyo’s pro-centercampaign, 134

repression and certification in changingrelations with homeless,140–141

RM perspective and, 131–132scaling up of the movement, 117–118selective benefits achieved, 137separation of movement activities from

communal life, 129shift in homeless struggle from the city to

national level, 130, 141significant role of state in lower-stratum

movements, 142Takai’s dubious claims about homeless

policy and movement, 179n14Takai’s undermining of indigenous

collective efforts, 120–121Takai and Irino’s discouragement of

homeless participation, 177n2termination of weekly street meetings

with homeless, 127Welfare Bureau’s effort to open year-

round support centers, 124–125Welfare Bureau’s launch of self-suste-

nance support project, 119Winter Struggle of 1997–98, 121

West Shinjuku movement, initial periodearly patrol, welfare application, and

food serving activities, 139effects of brokerage by San’ya’s activists,

69–70, 76, 95employing tangible vs. intangible

resources, 96initial mobilization process, 76–84joint decision making on goals by

homeless and leadership, 141organizing of non-homeless activists from

San’ya, 139personal resources offered by the homeless,

139reasons for movement emergence in West

Shinjuku, 140variety of tactics used, 132

West Shinjuku movement, transitional periodchanging emphasis on promoting policy,

108–110conditions fostering transgressive

mobilization, 116failure to stop exclusionary practices, 114four main interaction occasions with

TMG and SWG, 106–109Harai and Takada, return to station area,

104–107less frequent use of disruptive tactics,

110–113loosening of solidaristic and antagonistic

relations, 97loss or undermining of collective benefits,

114physical separation of Harai and Takada,

102relationship of repression to deterrence of

protest, 113–114requests for disbanding of the new

Cardboard Village, 107–108shift in operational goals, 105Shinjuku Coalition’s shift away from

communal protection, 109use of institutional/non-institutional

tactics, 98weakness of intensive actions, 111

Winter shelters, 51, 66, 85–86, 91–92, 94,99, 103, 111, 115, 121, 123,131, 133, 136–138

Winter Struggle, 9–10, 19, 73–74, 92, 108,121, 170n2

Workersprimary, 37, 40secondary, 40

Workshop on Self-Sustenance Support of theHomeless, 1

World War II, 7, 20, 23, 26, 34, 51

YYakuza, 9, 73Yokohama City Government, 48Yoseba

activism in, 9buffer role against unemployment, 9construction industry and, 6, 45–51day laborers and homelessness, 7declining number of flophouses, 49in Japanese cities, 6–7Kamagasaki, 9

212 Index


Kama League, 9Kotobuki League, 9–10rapid rise of, in 1950s and 1960s,

31–32San’ya League, 9–10, 14

Sasajima League, 9–11seasonal homelessness and, during

1970s, 33–34Winter Struggle, 9yakuza employers and, 166n7

Index 213

