The organizing group for a tent village in Hibiya Park in Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo, said Sunday the welfare ministry has promised to prepare new shelters for the 500 people there.
The homeless people, many of them believed to be temporary workers recently thrown out of their jobs, have been staying in the park and a nearby welfare ministry hall.
“This situation is a man-made disaster caused by a wrongheaded (government) policy that allows employers to use workers as a disposable resource. We’d like the government to fulfill its responsibility” to protect workers, said [the Secretary General of a union for temporary workers].
The organizing group has called on the ministry to provide housing, food and clothes for the people in the park and hall.