“Life on the car” drifts on December 25 at 18:08

An incident that took place in August. A woman in her 50s is arrested for leaving her 92-year-old mother in a minicar. The woman lived in a car for three years in a family of three.
“Life on the car with family”
What happened to the family? Why did you live such a life? We went on to cover the background of the incident.
(Asa Watanabe, Maebashi Broadcasting Reporter)

Abandoned carcass of a family living on a car

On August 20, the Bon Festival holiday was over. In Gunma Prefecture, the maximum temperature continued to exceed 30 degrees.
On this day, the Gunma Prefectural Police announced a case.

`` Arrest of suspected body abandoner ''
This was all the trigger.
The content was that "a woman in her 50s left her body in a light passenger car even though a woman believed to be a 92-year-old mother had died." With this alone, there was not enough information to compile the news, so a junior police reporter interviewed a police station executive.
It turned out that the arrested woman lived in a mini-car for a year with her mother, son and three family members.

“Did you live on a car with your family?”
“How is it different from the street dwellers?”
"And with your family?"

Our doubts grew.
Police announced that we had a rough idea of ​​where the woman was from, so we set up a team and went around. However, he had no specific clue as to where his family lived in the car.
We hypothesized that there would be a "roadside station" where you could park your car freely and have access to toilets. At this point, it's an intuition.

Is there a "roadside station" nearby

About 10 minutes by car from the house where the woman who arrived in the interview lived, there was a "roadside station" with a vast parking lot. Naturally, the toilet can be used 24 hours.

At the end of August, one evening, I parked my car in the corner of the parking lot at Michi-no-Eki and watched him. 7:00 pm when the store closed. There was still light in the sky.

One hour later, at 8:00 pm, the sky was completely dark. There are only a few street lights in the parking lot.
"1 unit 2 units ... 10 units"
The car is stationary at a certain distance and there is no sign of movement.
Some of the cars were laid out so that they could not be seen from outside. I clearly felt the atmosphere was not for camping or leisure.

"Is he living in a car like that family?"
On this day, I checked only the situation and decided to raise it.
He continued asking the investigators that his family was a "roadside station", relying solely on intuition, and muttered on September 6 the name of a roadside station. At last I knew the site. The location was different from the roadside station where we checked the situation, but I was a little disappointed ...

Roadside station where the family lived

The next day, we visited a roadside station where our family lived.
The roadside station has a parking lot and toilets open 24 hours a day so you can eat. At a shop at the roadside station, local vegetables were sold, and during the day it was crowded with families.

9:00 pm, when the store closed and people disappeared. Even at this roadside station, there were several cars in the parking lot without signs of movement. People living in the car were also here.
When I talked to employees at the roadside station and frequently used drivers, they witnessed people who could be seen as family members.

On September 9, the arrested woman was not charged. This led to no trial in public courts, and it was not known in detail why the family had been living "on a car". The case was a break here.

People on the road at roadside stations

We didn't give up here and continued reporting.
I thought there might be people on the road at other roadside stations as well.

A reporter and director, four people in a telephone interview at 132 roadside stations in the Kanto region, found something surprising.
36% of all roadside stations answered that there were people living by car.
He also found that at least nine people who seemed to have lived on the car had died.

An employee at a roadside station said, `` I often saw a sudden collapse or a call to an ambulance for a heatstroke-like symptom near the sign at the entrance to the parking lot. If you could speak and speak, you might not have died. "
In addition, I tweeted this.

"Sometimes I don't think it's unusual to die at a roadside station."

It was a shocking word.
What exactly is this? We decided to take this as a “new cross section” of society and proceed with further coverage.

Tough car life

In September, we went around "Michinoeki" in Gunma prefecture one by one, every night, in parallel with the interview. People who lived on the car continued to call out to find a car they could ride on.

There are 32 roadside stations in Gunma prefecture. When asking employees at roadside stations in various places if they are living on a car, they will immediately answer "I'm there", but there is almost no contact with people living on a car was.
Employees parked their car in a place where they could park it freely, so they were tolerant.

We applied for interviews with people living on the road at the roadside station, but there were few people who could talk. I knew ...


About two weeks after I started reporting, I met a 66-year-old man at a roadside station in Gunma Prefecture. It is said that he has been living in a mini passenger car for nearly a year.
At first I was refused the interview, but I went for two weeks and finally responded to the interview. The man showed me in the car.

When I opened the car door, it was packed full of daily necessities. There was a cassette stove behind the rear seat and two pot lids on the back of the seat. It is said that if there are ingredients, they may cook.
There is a seat on the back seat, and he sleeps here every day. It was too large to stretch out and sleep.

The man began to speak in a slightly hazy voice.

"Before I started this life, I weighed about 70kg, but dropped to about 40kg."

"Do you not want to receive welfare?" I asked a simple question.
The man spoke in a slightly outraged tone.

"If you don't know, if you're living this way, it's easy to say that you should get a welfare. But once I go to the city hall and ask," I'll take my car. " It was cut off and finished. "

According to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, cars are considered assets and, in principle, having a car does not provide welfare.

The reason for not letting go of the car

Last year, men quit their truck drivers and their lives became impoverished. He said he needed a car to find a new job and never let go.
There was also a reason not to let go of the cost of living.

The current income of men is only 100,000 yen a month pension. Living in an apartment costs 140,000 yen in addition to rent for 40,000 yen, as well as food and utilities. The deficit is about 40,000 yen every month.
Rents and utilities are no longer required, and expenditures are within the pension limits. However, there are no refrigerators, and you have to buy food every time, so the cost of food is high and your life is barely possible.

In our interview, when we heard about male half life, we noticed something.
Isn't it "not letting go" but "not letting go" of the car?

The man showed us something. Here is a picture of my wife.
He had lost his wife, who had been with him for many years, seven years ago. Photograph of going on a trip and crossing arms with his wife. There were also photos of smiling faces holding hands and facing the front.
The men had no children and it was a pleasure for the couple to drive in this car. I can't let go of a car full of memories with my wife.

A word that a man told us to squeeze.

"I'm disappointed when I'm gone. My dreams and hope are gone."

I felt as if the life, pride and memories of men were packed in a small space called a car.

Parents and children who have no one to rely on

Some families had to live on a car due to family-related problems.
I met a woman in her 30s with a young child. Now she lives in an apartment with her husband and three children, with government support.

I lived on a car three years ago in winter. At that time, the eldest daughter was one year old and was pregnant.
The woman talked about her life at the time.

"If you didn't have a car, you had to stay home, so it was the only place to keep out the rain and the wind. Internet cafes were useless if you had children, and you couldn't help."

Why live on a car with your family.
Both couples were estranged from their parents, and the reason was a trouble with relatives living together. The income of a couple who worked in day employment is about 100,000 yen a month. I couldn't afford to rent an apartment.

The woman talked about her childhood when she was living on a car.

"I work in a couple and one of them takes turns, and the vacant person puts the child to sleep. I thought this was my life forever. The hardest thing about car life was when my child cried. I was healing outside, sorry. ''

People living on cars nationwide

For three months, we covered more than 50 people living in cars and people living in cars in the past over three months. Life on the car has some difficulties that cannot be eliminated as a problem of poverty.

A man in his twenties who has been avoiding people because he was abused by his family since childhood.
Men in their 70s worried that their demented wives would not bother their neighbors, and in some cases they left their apartments.
Many people were forced to "live on a car" because of unemployment and family troubles.

Through the interview, I felt that the car was a haven for people who could not find a place in society.

Maebashi Broadcaster reporter Asa Watanabe Joined the station in 2017.
After the Yamaguchi bureau, Maebashi bureau police cap.
Covered a wide range of cases and accidents.