When the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare conducted an interview survey with so-called homeless people living on the streets, it was found that the average age was over 63 years old, which is the oldest age ever.

The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has been conducting interviews with people living on roads, parks, riverbeds, etc. approximately every five years since 2003.



In November last year, we conducted a survey of 1,169 men and women in the 23 wards of Tokyo and ordinance-designated cities nationwide, and found that the average age was 63.6 years.



It has risen 2.1 years since the last survey in 2016, the highest ever.



The percentage of people aged 70 and over was 34.4%, an increase of 14.7 points from the previous survey.



As for the period of living on the street, 40% of the respondents answered "10 years or more", an increase of 5.4 points from the previous time.



In addition, many of the reasons for starting life on the street were "because of less work" and "bankruptcy and unemployment", and 6.3% of the respondents said that the influence of the spread of the new corona infection was behind them. ..

Takanori Fujita, a director of the NPO "Hot Plus" that supports people in need of living, said, "The number of people who cannot get out of their homeless life is increasing because they are old enough to find a job again or cannot pay rent even if they have a pension. The system is not yet easy to consult, including livelihood protection, so I would like the government to consider support measures from the perspective of the parties concerned. "