MIAMI — Many Americans were shocked last month when the U.S. Census Bureau announced that poverty was at a 15-year high in this country, with 44 million people lacking income to sufficiently secure basic resources. Some would probably be even more surprised to learn that Japan, with its image of equality and social order, is experiencing similar trends. While Japan does not publish official data on poverty, the take-up rate for Seikatsu Hogo, the country's main welfare program for the poor, is often used as a poverty indicator. Japan's Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare recently announced that this figure reached a historical high in June of 2010.
But the bad news on both sides of the globe has been tempered with a remarkable positive development. Amid increases in poverty and unemployment, both countries have seen continuing decreases in street homelessness. The most recent Homeless Assessment Report to the U.S. Congress states that the chronically homeless, or those who have been on the streets or in shelters long-term and have disabilities, decreased nationally by 10 percent from 2008 to 2009, with 53 percent of communities covered by the report seeing a decrease. At the same time, the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare has reported a national decrease of street homelessness of 16 percent between 2009 and 2010, with 80 percent of communities reporting a decrease.
These statistics may be somewhat misleading. In the United States, even though chronic homelessness is declining, there have been substantial increases in familial homelessness. And, in Japan, there may be a growing "hidden homeless" population missed by street counts.