About 700 people who have lost their jobs and homes have moved into a temporary shelter at the National Olympic Memorial Youth Center opened by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, metro government officials said Thursday.
The number of occupants was much higher than the 500 anticipated, prompting the metro government to open a separate lodging facility inside the center to provide meals and accommodations over the holidays.
The move by the metro government is aimed at avoiding the situation at the end of 2008, when about 500 people without jobs and homes flocked to a tent village built by antipoverty campaigners in Hibiya Park.
The action by the campaigners shed light on the problem that dispatch workers housed in company dormitories have increasingly tended to lose their housing when their employment contracts are terminated amid the recession since the fall of 2008.