The Protocol for Homeless People in Public Places and Tokyo Olympics 2020

※この記事は2014年3月にPacific Rim Community Design Network Conferenceに発表したものです。

Without determination not to exclude homeless people,inclusion of them will never be achieved!!

It has been decided recently that the 2020 Olympics are held in our city, Tokyo. People living in Tokyo as well as those living elsewhere in Japan are really excited to have this massive international event.

The Tokyo Olympics are going to be held in the metropolitan area centering Tokyo. Its concept is “compact Olympics”, which means that venues are located in Tokyo’s highly urbanised area. If you come to watch Olympic Games, you can easily visit many tourist places such as the Imperial Palace, Sky Tree, Rainbow Bridge, and the traditional Asakusa downtown. Tokyo is a very clean and safe city as well. So, please come to Tokyo in 2020!!

And I’d also like to tell you that when you come to Tokyo, you won’t see any homeless person on the street, if we do not do anything now. It doesn’t mean we don’t have any homeless people in Tokyo, and actually, even the strictest government statistics says that there are around 2,000 homeless people in Tokyo. Others say there are 5 to 10 times more if we do the counting properly and include people in emergency shelters. So, why you won’t see homeless people during the Tokyo Olympics? It’s because they will be swept out off the streets of Tokyo and move to adjacent cities. We know that in big events like Olympics, the sweeping out of homeless people is likely to happen.

In the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, it was reported that arrests of homeless people dramatically increased and in some cases homeless people were offered a one-way bus ticket away from Atlanta. Can you imagine what would happen if such a big event comes to your home city? Do you think that similar exclusion of homeless people would happen in your city? Unfortunately, in Tokyo, we think it is very likely to happen if efforts to change the current situation do not take place.

By the way, do you remember the 2000 Sydney Olympics? During this Olympics, which was the next summer Olympics after Atlanta, it is said that the exclusion of homeless people didn’t happen, at least to a lesser extent than in Atlanta. One of the reasons for this was the introduction of the Protocol for Homeless People in Public Places just before the Olympics began.

What is the Protocol? The Protocol was introduced by the NSW state government to help ensure that homeless people are treated respectfully and appropriately and are not discriminated against on the basis of their homeless status. It also aims to assist homeless people to receive services if they need or request them. Its underlying principle is that homeless people have the same entitlement as any member of the public to be in public places. Also, the Protocol has made clear that a homeless person should not be approached unless they request assistance or appear to be in need of assistance, unless an official seeks to engage with the person for the purpose of providing a service, or unless the homeless person’s behavior threatens their own safety or the safety of people around them.

This Protocol has been endorsed by NSW state agencies including both social service providers like Housing NSW and Community Services and authorities managing public places like Sydney Olympic Park Authority (SOPA), Office of Environmental Heritage (OEH) and NSW Police. It is significant that this Protocol is agreed between cross-sectional agencies.

Next, I introduce how the Protocol was developed in the years approaching to the Olympics. In the Candidature Files that were submitted to the IOC, Sydney specifically mentioned its social sustainability aims. After Sydney was selected as the host city, associations of nongovernmental organisations concerning about the possible negative impact of the Olympics on homeless people studied past Olympic cases and published reports. Advocacy organisations also required the government to make sure that sweeping out of homeless people would not happen after they had learnt what happened in the previous Atlanta Olympics. In response, the NSW government with Housing NSW as a lead agency established the Protocol after discussion with some community groups. At the same time, an agreement to establish a partnership between state agencies concerning homelessness issues was launched in a conference called Living in the Olympic State Conference.

Along with the introduction of the Protocol, programs to prevent spatial exclusion of homeless people were implemented during the Olympics. As a result, no big-scale exclusion occurred in Sydney. For example, a call centre program that aimed to make a reporting system for homeless people when they got harassed by public officials received less than 20 calls during the Olympics. It is probably not true to say that no homeless person was negatively affected by the Olympics, but the fact that this special occasion triggered the establishment of the Protocol is significant. Sydney Olympics are praised for having a social inclusionist point of view and leaving the Protocol, a lasting legacy for the socially excluded. More than 10 years after the Olympics, the Protocol is still in effect, regularly reviewed, and implemented in the field.

In what ways does the Protocol have its effect in the field now? Last October, we conducted interviews with organisations implementing the Protocol and working with homeless people. Here, SOPA, OEH and Ambulance are state signatory agencies of the Protocol.

SOPA and OEH are responsible for managing certain public places. According to SOPA and OEH, their staff members sometimes come across a homeless person in their jurisdiction, but as long as the homeless person does not leave a lot of rubbish or enter a dangerous area, they just leave the person alone. Also, if the homeless person requests assistance, staff members contact service providers listed on the Protocol.

Mission Australia uses the Protocol to provide advices to local councils about how to treat homeless people. They consider that their stance is well reflected in the Protocol, and therefore the existence of the Protocol means their stance is officially supported. Mission Australia also told us that police officers’ understanding on homelessness has been largely improved thanks to the Protocol. Recently, NSW police in Sydney began to do staff trainings on the Protocol.

City of Sydney Homelessness Unit also affirms the Protocol as representing their principles. They use the Protocol when they conduct street counts in order to teach how to treat homeless people to volunteers.

Thus, the underlying principles of the Protocol are recognised and actually implemented in the field by authorities managing public places. For homeless service providers, the Protocol is a useful tool to explain their stance and share their thoughts with other people who are not familiar with homeless issues.

If we think about the entire homeless support systems in Sydney, it is pointed out that the systems are increasingly providing personalised services. For chronically homeless people in particular, support systems are providing comprehensive person-centred services using approaches like Housing First. By making sure that housing and services are available for street homeless people and at the same time that their right to be in public places is secured, Sydney’s homeless support succeeds to provide an inclusive system as a whole.

So, please remember that the Olympics are coming to Tokyo in 2020! Are the Tokyo Olympics going to include or exclude homeless people? Unfortunately, as we mentioned earlier, Tokyo seems to be moving toward an exclusive direction. There are already some exclusive actions taking place. For example, some guard fences and warning signs that aim not to let homeless people lie down in public places have been set up around the Olympic venues.

If this kind of actions continues to be taken, it is expected that homeless people will move or be forced to move outside of Tokyo. What will happen next is that cities around Tokyo face a large number of homeless people coming into their city area. Kawasaki City, one of the adjacent cities of Tokyo, already expresses their concern in their homeless support plan and has begun to consider their responsive measures to this big impact.

Although the current situation is not looking good, we should remember how in Sydney the Protocol was developed in the heightened energy triggered by the Olympics. Olympics could also be an opportunity to change the current situation toward an inclusive direction! Thus, what we aim to achieve is to make an inclusive society where homeless people are provided with appropriate housing and services, and at the same time they are not excluded from public places.

We believe that if the government tries to move homeless people outside of Tokyo and house them in adjacent cities, it is not an honest measure to support homeless people. It is important for Tokyo to declare that homeless people have the same entitlement as other members of the public to be in public places. Without this, Tokyo can never include and integrate homeless people into society.

Without determination not to exclude homeless people,

inclusion of them will never be achieved!!