{"id":4331,"date":"2019-03-29T16:14:36","date_gmt":"2019-03-29T07:14:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cnic.jp\/english\/?p=4331"},"modified":"2019-04-02T11:58:55","modified_gmt":"2019-04-02T02:58:55","slug":"nuclear-accident-evacuees-coerced-into-meeting-independence-deadline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cnic.jp\/english\/?p=4331","title":{"rendered":"Nuclear Accident Evacuees Coerced into Meeting Independence Deadline"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Seto Daisaku, Secretary General, Evacuation Cooperation Center<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Seto-san demanding rights and support for Fukushima evacuees at the National Diet Members Building<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Eight\nyears on from the TEPCO Fukushima nuclear accident, the government and\nFukushima Prefecture, while making appeals for the reconstruction of Fukushima,\nare attempting to end housing provision and economic support in the areas to\nwhich evacuees from the nuclear accident have evacuated, and are attempting to brush\nthe difficulties faced by the evacuees under the carpet by the time the 2020\nTokyo Olympic Games are held. \u201cEight years have passed since the nuclear\naccident. We would like to ask you to become independent now.\u201d The government\nand Fukushima Prefecture are making these kinds of statements that coerce independence\nby a deadline set by the government, the perpetrator in the nuclear accident, as\nthey gradually cut off various kinds of support. They say that this is because\nmany people in Fukushima are now living normal lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Reality of Fukushima \u2013 The Reality of a Town where the\nEvacuation Order has been Rescinded<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We planned a Fukushima site visit for officers of the consumer\u2019s cooperative from January 18. As we headed toward Tomioka Town from Iwaki City, we encountered trucks going the other way along National Route 6 several times. They were carrying decontaminated soil to the intermediary storage facilities in Futaba Town and Ohkuma Town from the provisional storage yards in vacant lots and so on all over the prefecture. The evacuation order for Tomioka Town was rescinded in April 2017, but of the original population of 16,000 only 430 residents have returned, making a total of no more than 800 people (about 5%) when workers from outside are included. When I visited in March last year, it was about 3%, so the return is not moving forward. Apparently, there are 22 children. 30% to 40% are in their 40s and 50s, the vast majority of the remainder being elderly people. Transport services for the elderly are also limited. Isolation is unavoidable due to the lack of infrastructure for daily life. The government lifted the maximum exposure dose standard at which the evacuation order can be rescinded to 20 millisieverts\/year (mSv\/y). Before the nuclear accident it was 1 mSv\/y and the current status in Tomioka Town is 2.3 mSv\/y. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Facing up to the Problem of Poverty among Evacuees<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before the cutoff of free provision of emergency temporary housing for roughly 12,000 (at the time) households of autonomous evacuees[1]<\/a> at the end of March 2017, Fukushima Prefecture began individual interviews to have evacuees evicted from the housing in their evacuation destinations in May 2016. I was contacted in the middle of the night from a train station somewhere by a mother who had evacuated with her young child. Having heard the explanation in the interview, she had become anxious about her future, and had wandered the streets holding her child and thinking about killing herself. The Evacuation Cooperative Center, of which I am the secretary general, was founded In July 2016, the trigger for this being the need to shelter that mother and child. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the\ntwo years after the founding of the center we have received more than 150\nindividual consultations about housing and daily life problems from autonomous evacuees.\nThe reason the center was founded was that we understood about the adverse\neconomic circumstances evacuees had fallen into due to the cutoff of provision\nof free housing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am\nnot able to forget even now, one of my first support cases, a woman who killed\nherself after evacuating with her children. The woman, the same age as me, was\nrepeatedly told by her husband, \u201cThe TV is saying it\u2019s OK. You\u2019re an idiot.\nThere\u2019s no need to escape. Come back to Fukushima regularly to look after me.\u201d\nEven so, she took two jobs at their evacuation destination so her children\ncould go on to study at university. When she heard that her children had passed\nthe university exam, she was absolutely exhausted and killed herself. I cleared\nup her belongings after she died. \u201cMy family has been split up. It\u2019s my fault.\nI understand why my husband felt angry. If only there had been no nuclear\naccident\u2026 If only I had not worried about the radiation, perhaps we could have\nlived as we did before the earthquake disaster,\u201d were the words she left\nbehind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also\nengaged in emergency support for a man who had become homeless. One night in\nApril last year I suddenly received an email message. In fact, I had been\ncontacted by the man a year earlier. \u201cI evacuated from Koriyama City to\nemployment promotion housing in Kanagawa Prefecture, but I was evicted when the\nprovision of free emergency housing ended and am now roaming the streets.\u201d He\ncould not go on living in the employment promotion housing without a certain\nlevel of income. I waited for him in front of the ward office but failed to\nmeet him. Later, he contacted me to say that he would look for work that\noffered accommodation and did not contact me again. This new email message was\narriving a year after that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nwaited for him at (Tokyo\u2019s) Shibuya Ward Office and this time managed to meet\nhim. He was down to his last five yen. He had no baggage and it was obvious he\nhad been wearing his clothes for a long time. He told me he had lived in Yoyogi\nPark and an Internet caf\u00e9 in the intervening year. He had applied for social\nrelief, and had secured a place to live from that day, a single room shelter.\nHe told me that in March the previous year, the person in charge at Fukushima\nPrefecture had said, \u201cEveryone is living normally in Koriyama. Please come back\nto Fukushima.\u201d They cut off support across the board without asking about anyone\u2019s\nindividual economic situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Unending Housing Problem<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fukushima Prefecture ended the provision of free housing for 12,000 (at the time) households of autonomous evacuees in March 2017. At the time, the two-year extension of occupation of the national civil servants\u2019 Shinonome housing block in Kohtoh Ward, Tokyo (150 households) and the rent subsidy for evacuees in private rented housing for persons with a monthly income of 214,000 yen or less (2,046 households) were given as a part of the ‘cataclysmic change alleviation measures,’ but this terminated at the end of March 2019. In the case of the national civil servants\u2019 accommodation, residents who cannot leave after the beginning of April will be billed for twice the rent under the name of \u201cdamages for illegal occupation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I\nwrite this article on March 14, 2019, of 110 households of autonomous evacuees living\nin the national civil servants\u2019 accommodation, 71 households have not been able\nto secure housing for April and onwards. From April 1, they will be considered\n\u201cillegal occupants.\u201d In just two weeks\u2019 time the nuclear accident evacuees will\nbecome \u201cillegal occupants.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We carried out work to ascertain individual preferences for housing from April onwards for three evacuees from the Shinonome housing block who came to our consultative meeting at the end of January. Every one of the evacuees has serious anxieties because of the pressure from Fukushima Prefecture. They are sick to the back teeth of the \u201cone-sheet letter of notification of eviction\u201d and the announcement that \u201cIf you do not find a place to move to by March 10, the subsidy for moving home of 100,000 yen will not be paid.\u201d This is the Fukushima Prefecture housing consultation; simply, \u201cWe want you to leave before the deadline.\u201d No one can expect a warm response from housing consultation like that. But they are fed up with being put under pressure like this. Many say: “If there is a good place to live, we\u2019d like to go there and live a ‘peaceful life.'” But there is virtually no housing that can be rented on the income of the lowest level wage for non-regular work in Tokyo\u2019s Kohtoh Ward. The three persons did not choose to live in the Kohtoh Ward evacuation housing because they wanted to be there. It was because the workplace of all three of them is in Kohtoh Ward. They said they had managed to find the workplace after a lot of searching. How far will they be able to move outside Kohtoh Ward? The Evacuation Cooperation Center, and the Independent Daily Life Support Center Moyai (‘Anchor’) are carrying out housing support activities, finding out how much rent people can pay, how much of the preliminary moving-in costs the person can get together, and then continuing to search for housing matches. We do not say, like Fukushima Prefecture, \u201cPlease go to the real-estate office yourself.\u201d We carry out detailed follow-up, going with people to view housing when searching for somewhere to live, and even conduct daily life problem consultations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A\nwoman in her thirties who had evacuated from Iwaki City came to the\nconsultation meeting. She had found employment with a beauty-related company in\nTokyo, but ended up with bipolar disorder when she met with slander and\nbullying at her workplace because she had evacuated. She left the job and is\nnow commuting to the hospital while trying to find new employment. She said, \u201cI\nam in no state to leave my place this spring. I would like them to wait a\nlittle, at least until I recover.\u201d The prefecture, however, says, \u201cExtension of\noccupation is difficult. If you cannot move by the end of March, we will bill\nyou for double the rent.\u201d Unable to take the pressure from the prefecture, she\nhas moved to Kanagawa Prefecture, where she is dependent on a friend. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Voices\nof evacuees facing difficulties such as \u201cI cannot pay the rent from April,\u201d \u201cI\ncannot pay the moving costs or the money for the renewal\u201d because of the March\n31 end of rent subsidies for private rented housing and the end of support\npolicies by the municipality to which people have evacuated have reached the\nEvacuation Cooperation Center. We have heard voices such as \u201cI have no option\nbut to procure funds from a credit card loan.\u201d It is certain that from April\nonward, the number of evacuees who are \u201cin rent arrears\u201d or have \u201cmultiple\ndebts\u201d will increase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We had\nSOSs from evacuees from the former limited residence zone in Odaka Ward,\nMinami-Soma City. Although there had been specific extensions in the zones\nwhere the evacuation orders had been rescinded in Soma City, Kawamata Town,\nKatsurao Village and Iitate Village, the free provision of emergency temporary\nhousing will end at the end of March. If Fukushima Prefecture ends the system\nof renting housing to provide to evacuees, it will be necessary to have the\nlandlord consent to the continuation of occupancy for those evacuees continuing\nto live in the private rental housing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grounds for and Problems with the Support Cutoff<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

While it is not widely known, it was Fukushima Prefecture itself that made the decision to end support for the autonomous evacuees, the government later approving and adopting Fukushima Prefecture\u2019s decision. In June 2012, the Nuclear Accident Children and Victims\u2019 Support Act was adopted unanimously by the Japanese Diet. However, the cutoff of free provision of housing to autonomous evacuees was set without any debate in either the Diet or the Fukushima Prefecture assembly. Regarding the ending of the period of occupancy of the national civil service accommodation, the Financial Bureau of the Ministry of Finance, which is responsible for the accommodation, stated in direct negotiations, \u201cWe will take a positive stance in considering an extension of occupancy if there is a request from Fukushima Prefecture,\u201d but the prefecture did not alter it\u2019s position on ending the support for the autonomous evacuees. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nreasons given by Fukushima Prefecture for the cutoff of support are as follows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1) People are living normally in Fukushima Prefecture. Considering\nthe feelings of the people of the prefecture, it is not possible to give\nsupport only to evacuees who evacuated from locations outside the compulsory evacuation\nzones: Fairness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2) Eight years have passed since the nuclear accident. We would now\nlike to ask people to become independent: We can say that this is independence coerced\nby deadline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continued Refusal to Grasp the Realities of the Evacuees<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Evacuation Cooperation Center has strengthened its coordination with the Nuclear Accident Children and Victims\u2019 Support Act Diet Members\u2019 Association. In 2018, we held \u201cMeetings to Hear the Voices of the Evacuees\u201d three times in Kohtoh Ward, Tokyo, twice in Niigata and once each in Fukushima and Kyoto, with the participation of the Support Act Diet Members\u2019 Association and Fukushima Prefecture\u2019s Life Services Department. The Diet members and municipality councilors listened directly to the voices of the evacuees who are living in different parts of the country and have requested concrete support measures in the Diet and local assemblies. Despite this, Fukushima Prefecture has stubbornly denied our requests. The most serious problem is the continual refusal to conduct a \u201csurvey of the actual situation of evacuees.\u201d In the case that the rent subsidy is ended for those who are living in private rented housing, the vast majority of evacuees, since their income in the places they have evacuated to has dropped precipitously, far from becoming independent they will fall deeper into poverty. The prefecture refuses to investigate because it knows this is the situation and wants to keep it hidden as far as possible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According\nto the \u201cResults of a Survey on the Status of Evacuees\u2019 Daily Life\u201d published by\nNiigata Prefecture on January 18, 2019, 11% of autonomous evacuees cited\n\u201cdifficulties and anxieties related to the end of rent subsidies for private\nrented housing\u201d and 18% said \u201cthe burden of daily life expenditures is heavy.\u201d\nCombining these, it is clear that around 30% of the evacuees are facing\ndifficulties related to daily life expenditures including rent. In the\n\u201cOpinions and requests to the administration\u201d section, a total of 25% of\nrespondents wrote, \u201cContinuation of support for evacuees\u201d or \u201cContinuation of\nrent subsidies for private rented housing.\u201d In a questionnaire conducted by the\nSociety of Certified Clinical Psychologists in Kanagawa Prefecture in the\nsummer of 2018, the most frequent response to the question \u201cWhat are you\ncurrently troubled by or anxious about in your daily life?\u201d was \u201cHousing.\u201d The\nsecond most frequent response was \u201cFunds for daily life.\u201d In the results of a\ncurrent status survey in Yamagata Prefecture, 64% of the total respondents\nreplied \u201cfunds for daily life\u201d when asked about \u201cdifficulties or anxieties.\u201d\nThe next most frequent responses were \u201chealth\u201d at 49% and \u201chousing\u201d at 40.5%. A\nsimilar survey by the Tokyo Metropolitan Area found that 22% of respondents had\na monthly income of 100,000 yen or less and that more than half had a monthly\nincome of 200,000 yen or less. The Reconstruction Agency and Fukushima\nPrefecture, however, have not conducted a daily life status survey for\nautonomous evacuees since October 2016, and do not even have an accurate grasp\nof the numbers of evacuees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consultation Support Alone does not Lead to Resolutions <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nformer Minister for Reconstruction, Yoshino Masayoshi, often spoke of the\n\u201cjack-of-all-trades consultation office\u201d at press conferences during his term\nas minister. \u201cWe have consultation windows in 26 locations nationwide. These\nare places where any kind of consultation can be made. Firstly, housing, then\nworkplaces for those who want to work and become independent, introductions for\nnursing care and medical treatment, consultations about daily life; 26\nlocations nationwide where jack-of-all-trades consultation can be carried out\u2026\nThe government will certainly do everything it can for those people who are\nautonomous evacuees. If it is insufficient, then I will give further support \u2013\nthat\u2019s what I\u2019m thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, at the Meeting to Hear the Voices of Autonomous Evacuees in Kyoto, the raw anger of the evacuees was vented on the representative from Fukushima Prefecture. Ms. Takagi Kumiko, who evacuated from Iwaki City with her children, and who is also active as a consultant for independence support of people facing difficulties in daily life, stated, \u201cConsultative support doesn\u2019t solve anything. Concrete assistance is necessary\u2026 A nuclear accident evacuee was told, \u2018If you fall into daily life difficulties, it\u2019s OK if that leads on to social relief.\u2019 Please stop handling these cases in this way. Ask yourself why these people fell into difficulties. Before they fall into difficulties, economic support should be given with a housing guarantee as the basis.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fukushima\nPrefecture began an Evacuee Housing Securement and Moving Support Project in\nJuly 2018. To support the securing of new housing after the end of the period\nof provision of emergency temporary housing in Fukushima, Ibaraki, Tochigi,\nSaitama, Chiba, Kanagawa and Niigata Prefectures and in Tokyo, NPO\norganizations, etc. were commissioned to implement the Evacuee Housing\nSecurement and Moving Support Project. The support content is handling\ntelephone and direct visit consultations, introductions to vacant housing,\nprovision of housing information, accompaniment and so on to real estate\nbusinesses in the search for housing, and assistance with contract procedures.\nThis support is limited to \u201cconsultative support\u201d and there is absolutely no\n\u201cfinancial support\u201d for people facing economic difficulties after rent\nsubsidies have been cut off. This is precisely the same as the deficiencies in\nthe support system for the independence of people facing difficulties in daily\nlife. \u201cConsultation projects\u201d have been unable to solve anything. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Housing is the Foundation of Life \u2013 The Support Network has Begun a\nHousing Support Project<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nrent subsidy system will end at the end of March 2019. People who have not yet\nbeen able to secure housing because of this are living here and there all over\nthe country, and we know from others who are giving support that their numbers\nare quite large. In this \u201chousing poverty\u201d issue, ranking the kinds of\nsituations where there are restrictions (refusals) on moving into rented\nhousing, it is not only single elderly persons and households that have family\nmembers with disabilities that are facing problems, but, in order, foreigners,\nthose on low incomes, single elderly households, households that have disabled\npersons, households consisting of elderly people only, and one-parent\nhouseholds. The reasons are \u201csolitary death\u201d due to isolation, lack of\ncooperation with neighboring residents due to disability, \u201crental arrears\u201d due\nto low income, and inability to find a guarantor, resulting in isolation. Many\nevacuees have no one living nearby who can act as a guarantor for them. How\nmuch of this is understood by the Fukushima Prefecture authorities?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Evacuation Cooperation Center has coordinated with various support organizations, such as the Independent Daily Life Support Center Moyai (‘Anchor’) housing support section, which has introduced recommended housing for many evacuees as well as consultations regarding people who will act as guarantors; the provision of sublease housing from the Tukuroi (‘Patch’) Tokyo Fund; and moving services from the Enterprise Union Aun (‘Inclusion’). Instead of pushing people off by providing them with real estate information and then saying, \u201cOK, now please look for a place on your own responsibility,\u201d the staff of the Independent Daily Life Support Center Moyai are even today accompanying evacuees on visits to view housing options. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Difficulties of Talking about the Anxieties of being a Nuclear Accident\nEvacuee<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At a\nstudy meeting, I came up against \u201cthe reality of evacuees who are unable to show\ntheir faces.\u201d A mother who had evacuated with her children spoke up to say,\n\u201cWhen I thought about my children\u2019s future rather than my own problems, I\nrealized that it\u2019s absolutely impossible for my children to live comfortably by\ndisclosing my own situation.\u201d Places where evacuee \u201cmamas\u201d gather are \u201cplaces\nfor hidden conversations.\u201d This society, where those affected by the Fukushima\nnuclear accident have to live while keeping a very low profile has not changed\none iota. That is the reality of eight years after the nuclear accident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology produced and distributed 14.5 million copies of the 2018 revised edition of the Radiation Side Reader<\/em> for elementary, junior high and high school students and, beyond expectations, these have permeated through to schools nationwide. On the premise that \u201cthere are no health concerns due to radiation,\u201d the book astoundingly substitutes unfounded bullying of evacuee children for the nuclear accident by saying, \u201cThink about preventing bullying rather than worry about an accident that has already happened.\u201d The photos of the Fukushima nuclear power plant (NPP) and diagrams showing the compulsory evacuation zones have been deleted, replaced by photos of Commutan Fukushima[2]<\/a> and scenes of reconstruction. The scale of the issues has been relatively minimized, and the focus has shifted to the future rather than the issues we face now. Content on contamination has been deleted and the book states that impacts from exposure levels of 100 to 200 mSv are no big deal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those not directly affected underestimate the damage and suffering, whereby the affected become invisible. To those distancing themselves from the NPP, the story goes “exposure impacts are no big deal” “don\u2019t concern yourself with the risks” “it\u2019s better to live without worrying about it”, thus coercing \u201creassurance.\u201d Evacuees are written off in the name of \u201creconstruction.\u201d In March 2020, almost all housing support, and even the temporary housing itself, will be abolished. When the Tokyo Olympic Games opens, the number of evacuees will likely be a statistical zero. That\u2019s just not acceptable, is it?
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/a> In Japanese ‘jishu hinansha\u81ea\u4e3b\u907f\u96e3\u8005’\nare evacuees who were living in areas outside the mandatory evacuation\ndistricts. Although they were not ordered to evacuate by government\nauthorities, they made their own decision to evacuate because they could not\nlive safely in their houses due to high radiation levels. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

[2]<\/a> Commutan Fukushima – Fukushima Prefecture Environment\nCreation Center Exchange Building is a large public facility in Tamura district\nin Fukushima which was built to ‘reassure’ people about radiation. It has been\ncriticized as a government and nuclear industry propaganda facility which plays\ndown the dangers of radiation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Seto Daisaku, Secretary General, Evacuation Cooperation Center Eight years on from the TEPCO Fukushima nuclear accident, the government and Fukushima Prefecture, while making appeals for the reconstruction of Fukushima, are attempting to end...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[89],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fukushima-daiichi-evacuees"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnic.jp\/english\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnic.jp\/english\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnic.jp\/english\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnic.jp\/english\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnic.jp\/english\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4331"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/cnic.jp\/english\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4405,"href":"https:\/\/cnic.jp\/english\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4331\/revisions\/4405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cnic.jp\/english\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnic.jp\/english\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cnic.jp\/english\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}