136 local gov`ts launch year-end counseling services for unemployed+

TOKYO, Dec. 30 Kyodo -
A total of 136 municipalities and 78 ''Hello Work'' job placement centers in 23
prefectures across the nation launched special year-end counseling services
Tuesday for unemployed people at the request of the central government.
While Japanese government offices are usually closed between Dec. 29 and Jan.
3, these local governments responded to the request from the central
government's task force to assist poor and needy people, with some of the
municipalities also offering lodging facilities for people without jobs and
homes.
According to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, the actual number of local
governments that accepted the central government request is slightly more than
200, but around 70 of them asked that their services not be publicized. A
ministry source said these local governments might fear a possible influx of
unemployed people into their municipalities or a surge in the number of
applications for welfare benefits.
Most of the emergency counseling services will run for two days until
Wednesday, but the cities of Morioka, Miyazaki and Tokyo will continue their
services through Jan. 3.
At the National Olympics Memorial Youth Center in Shibuya Ward which the Tokyo
Metropolitan Government began using Monday as a temporary shelter for a maximum
500 unemployed people without a place to stay, 469 people, including seven
women, had checked in as of 8 p.m. Tuesday.
Since the number has nearly reached its capacity, the metropolitan government
will start using a separate lodging facility inside the center that can
accommodate up to 300 people from Wednesday, officials said.
Physicians, lawyers and other professionals are providing advisory services
regarding various issues such as employment, health and debts at the center.
A 63-year-old man, who had been dispatched to a book-binding factory until
losing the job last week, is among the people staying at the center. He had
been sleeping in saunas after becoming unable to pay his rent and leaving his
apartment in May 2007.
''I cannot rent a new apartment because I have no one who will become a
guarantor for me. I hope I can get a room by obtaining public assistance,'' he
said.
In a counseling service center in Nagoya, a 49-year-old man said he has been
sleeping in Internet cafes or inside his car for the past four months.
He is unable to obtain welfare benefits due to his possession of a car, but he
cannot abandon it because he needs it for his day-labor job. ''It's so cold
(sleeping) in the car and I could no longer stand it,'' he said.
Meanwhile, some of the antipoverty campaigners who built a ''tent village'' in
Tokyo's Hibiya Park last year have set up tents in a park near Hello Work
Shinjuku for laid-off workers.
The tent village last year drew media attention to shed light on the problem of
dispatched workers who live in company dormitories tending to lose their
accommodation when their employers terminate their contracts.
==Kyodo