Gov't to open up more public employees' apartments for jobless people

TOKYO, Dec. 26 Kyodo -
The government announced Friday additional steps for those who have lost their
jobs and homes due to recent massive layoffs amid a sharp downturn in the
nation's economy, saying it will make available more accommodations built for
public employees as well as those for job seekers.
The Finance Ministry said it will make available to jobless people 775
apartments it manages across Japan for national government employees when they
are dispatched to regional agencies and bureaus. They are vacant units among
some 88,000 such apartments, ministry officials said.
Those apartments will be provided through local municipalities, which set
detailed conditions for tenants, and will be available for up to a year, the
officials said.
The housing units for central government officials have previously been made
available for disaster victims, but this is the first time they will be made
open to jobless people, they said.
Monthly rents for the apartments range from 4,000 yen to 48,000 yen and the
ministry will later collect the rents from municipalities. It is up to local
governments to decide on the amount of rent to be paid by tenants.
Separately, Health, Labor and Welfare Minister Yoichi Masuzoe told a press
conference the same day that the government will freeze a plan to scrap its
decrepit housing and make some 31,000 apartments available to jobless people
from early January, after quickly renovating them.
These units were originally prepared for job seekers as temporary housing until
they found jobs. The welfare ministry will accept those who have lost their
jobs in these accommodations until the end of March 2011.
Referring to a ministry survey that showed around 85,000 non-regular workers
have so far lost or are set to lose their jobs by March, Masuzoe said that
Japan's economy ''has been worsening at an extremely high speed.'' ''It is like
tumbling down a steep slope,'' he said.
Other government ministries and agencies manage a total of 137,000 apartments
to accommodate their employees. The Finance Ministry on Friday called for
opening up vacant units among them to unemployed people.
On Wednesday, the infrastructure ministry said it will provide 23,000 units
managed by the government-linked housing agency to those who have lost their
jobs and place to live at discounted rents.
==Kyodo
2008-12-26 23:24:34