Kiyomi Sawajiri lives with her husband on the second floor of an apartment complex in Natori, Miyagi Prefecture, that has been deemed as only "partially destroyed" in the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake.
Kiyomi Sawajiri lives with her husband on the second floor of an apartment complex in Natori, Miyagi Prefecture, that has been deemed as only "partially destroyed" in the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake.
Cracks in the wall repaired by the landlord were left as is. Parts of the wall kept crumbling and falling off, so Kiyomi's husband covered up a portion of it with a piece of plywood. Whenever there are aftershocks, parts of the wall and ceiling crumble. The balcony developed a significant lean.
"I am afraid (to go out on the balcony) so I am drying our futons and laundry inside," said Kiyomi, 65.
They have applied for temporary housing, but have yet to receive a reply, as Natori has stated that only occupants of residences that were "completely destroyed" by earthquake are eligible for temporary housing.
"It doesn't matter where you are if the building you are in collapses, the result is the same. We're giving up (hoping to move)," she said.
An official from Natori says, "If a home that has suffered partial or large scale destruction is repaired, it will be livable, and occupants of such homes are not eligible for temporary housing. If there are extenuating circumstances we will deal with them accordingly."
In Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima, the three prefectures most affected by the massive 9.0-magnitude quake, tsunami and nuclear power plant crisis, differences have been found in conditions that must be met for entering temporary housing.
As the national government standards are vague, municipal governments have been left to interpret them according to their own particular situations. In eight municipalities, homes of people applying for temporary housing must be designated as "completely destroyed" or suffering from "large-scale destruction." Residents from at least 4,000 homes that have only been recognized as "partially destroyed" are in principal not eligible for housing.
Interviews were conducted with 42 municipalities suffering from effects of the quake, such as damage caused by the tsunami or being located within the evacuation zone around the Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
Kesennuma in Miyagi Prefecture and Tamura in Fukushima Prefecture have set complete destruction of one's home as a condition for being eligible for temporary housing. In Natori, residents whose homes suffered partial damage from the tsunami are eligible for housing, but homes only suffering damage from the earthquake itself must have been completely destroyed for their occupants to be deemed eligible. In Iwate Prefecture's Kuji and Tanohata, Higashi-Matsushima in Miyagi Prefecture, and Shinchimachi and Iwaki in Fukushima Prefecture, eligibility is set at "large-scale destruction" or greater.
Prefectural governments build the temporary housing at the request of municipalities who then select residents and manage the housing. Funding is almost entirely provided by the national government, which has stipulated some general occupancy conditions such as the applicant's home must have been completely destroyed, or they would be unable to live in it for a long period of time. However, in reality, it is the municipal governments that have been entrusted with making eligibility decisions.
Miyako in Iwate Prefecture and Minami-Soma in Fukushima Prefecture have set rather generous conditions with only "one part" of a resident's home needing to have been destroyed to be considered eligible. Tagajyo and Iwanuma in Miyagi are making decisions based on what applicants tell them during consultations. Applicants are being allowed into temporary housing if they tell city officials something like "my home is no longer inhabitable." Kama in Iwate has set conditions according to the cause of damage. In the case of the tsunami, flood levels must have reached the floorboards or higher; for earthquake damage, an architect must conclude that the home is too dangerous to live in.
For municipal governments that have set tough eligibility conditions, it is often the case that their supply of temporary housing cannot keep up with the demand.
"We are unable to even secure enough sites for building temporary housing to meet current demand. If we could secure more, we would like to allow people with no place to go into the housing," noted a Kesennuma city official.
Higashi-Matsushima officials explained their reasoning: "A lot of buildings suffered damage so we set the eligibility level at large-scale destruction or greater. We are refusing people (whose homes) only suffered partial damage when they come up to the counter."
An Iwaki city official said, "The amount of temporary housing is limited; if we ease entry conditions we wouldn't be able to meet demand even if we had more units available."
An official at the Disaster Relief Office of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare says, "I believe these (varying conditions) are the result of municipalities making decisions on matters such as the securement of (building) sites based on their local circumstances. All we can do is ask the municipalities to be as flexible as possible for the sake of the evacuees."
The number of homes that have been designated as "partially destroyed," making their occupants ineligible for temporary housing, has reached 1,800 in Kesennuma and 1,900 in Higashi-Matsushima.
In Kesennuma, the house that Taiko Tamagawa, 66, rented developed a slant due to the tsunami, and the owner has scheduled it for demolition. All her personal possessions were lost, save for two or three blankets. She has been living in an evacuation center since the earthquake; however, since the house she had been renting was deemed by the city as suffering "large-scale destruction," not "completely destroyed," she is not eligible for temporary housing.
"I've lived my whole life in Kesennuma, and I don't want to leave at this stage in my life," Tamagawa said. "If I had some money, things would be different, but as it stands now I don't have a place to live. Even if it takes some time, I would like to be able to enter temporary housing."