Optimal Life Recovery Assistance for Those Who Are Residing inGovernment-Leased Private Rental Interim Housing in Widely
Dispersed Areas
S. Tatsuki1

ABSTRACT
Largest number of those who lost their houses due to the 2011 Tohoku-Oki earthquake/tsunami
disaster are now residing in Government-Leased Private Rental Interim Housing (GLPRIH).
Unlike prefabricated temporary housing occupants, GLPRIH dwellers reside in widely dispersedareas. Japanese disaster research has been mainly focusing on life recovery assistance forprefabricated temporary housing inhabitants who live in a close proximity and not much is known
about “diaspora” survivors. This paper outlines a set of projects aimed at identifying 1) life
recovery process characteristics among GLPRIH inhabitants, 2) interrelations between community
rebuilding and individual life recovery processes of GLPRIH dwellers, 3) effective ways toconnect/re-connect those displaced GLPRIH residents, and 4) effective ways to manage individuallife recovery by providing disaster case management services.

Introduction
In order to respond to huge temporary housing demands caused by Tohoku-Oki earthquake andtsunami, Japanese national government introduced a new policy that provided free temporary
housing units by the government’s renting privately owned apartments and houses for theimpacted survivors. Government-Leased Private Rental Interim Housing (GLPRIH) has since
become a mainstream policy: 57,825 units of apartments/houses were rented while 47,839 units
temporary housing were newly constructed. As of May, 2013, those who were dwelling in
GLPRIH, newly constructed (prefabricated), and public housing units were 50%, 41% and 9 %,respectively. Unlike prefabricated temporary housing occupants, GLPRIH dwellers reside inwidely dispersed areas inside and outside of the city/township of their original residence. This
made much harder for them to form mutual support networks, and to obtain necessary public
information and assistance. Japanese disaster research has been mainly focusing on life recovery
assistance for prefabricated temporary housing inhabitants who live in a close proximity and notmuch is known about “diaspora” survivors. This paper outlines a set of projects aimed atidentifying 1) life recovery process characteristics among GLPRIH inhabitants by conductingethnographic interviews as well as TQM-style focus group assessment workshops, 2)interrelations between community rebuilding and individual life recovery processes of GLPRIHdwellers, 3) effective ways to connect/re-connect those displaced GLPRIH residents with
community of origin, orientation and/or in current proximity through community social work
1

Professor, Dept. of Sociology, Doshisha University, Kamigyo-ku, Kyoto, Japan, 602-8580

Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Urban Disaster Reduction, Earthquake Engineering ResearchInstitute, Boulder, CO, USA, 2014.

initiatives, and 4) effective ways to manage individual life recovery by providing disaster casemanagement services. City of Natori, Miyagi prefecture was chosen as the project site. Natori is
one of Sendai Bay area coastal cities situated south of Sendai and suffered from serious tsunami
damages including 911 dead, 41 missing, 2,801 houses totally destroyed and 910 houses half
damaged. This paper illustrates an overview of the Natori GLPRIH study project that began in
October, 2012 (see Figure 1).
① -２Interrelations between Community
Rebuilding and Individual Life Recovery
Processes (N. Maki, Kyoto Univ.

① -１Identify Life Recovery Process
Characteristics of GLPRIH Residents
Focus Group Workshop Research

Ethnography Interview Research(S. Tatsuki, Doshisha Univ.)(S. Tanaka, Tokoha Univ.)•Impacted Citizens•Supporters•Children•People with Disability•GLPRIH Residents•Moved Prior to May 11, 2011
•Moved After May 11, 2011
•Prefabricated Housing Residents•Rebuilt New House•Restored Own House

Identify Parameters for Interrelations
between Interrelations between
Community Rebuilding and IndividualLife Recovery Processes

Identify Parameters for Recovery of Individual Lives
QuestionnaireSocial Survey

ScaleConstruction② -１Effective Ways to Connect/Re-Connect the
Displaced GLPRIH Residents (K. Uenoya, Doshisha Univ.)② - ２R&D on Disaster Case Management Support
System （S. Tatsuki, Doshisha Univ.)

Parameter
MeasuresCommunity Social Work Process

Assessment

Resource-Matching and Resource Mobilization

Identify Individual Life
Recovery Progress

Mobilize
WelfareCapacity

Organizational Partnership
BuildingAction
Research• Cooperatives• Social Welfare Council• Commissioned Welfare
VolunteerCommunity Social Work Practice
Model Implementation & Evaluation

Figure 1.

Scale
Construction

Empower
CivicEngagement

Partnership Building withSupporters• JOCA Workers• Natori Supporters’ NetworkFeedback

Individual & Family
Information

Survey Responses&Case RecordsParameter
Measurements
SupportResources/Services
RecordInformal Resources

Resource Matching

Natori GLPRIH Study Project Work Flow.

Identifying Parameters for Individual Life Recovery and Implementation of Effective Life
Recovery Support Measures
Individual Characteristics: Ethnography Interview Early Findings
Two separate teams employed different qualitative approaches, ethnography interviews andfocus group workshops, in order to identify life recovery process characteristics of GLPRIH
residents. From October, 2012 to March 2014, the Ethnography team interviewed 22 informants
including 16 GLPRIH residents/ex-residents, 4 prefabricated temporary housing residents, 1survivor who has been residing in his own restored house, 1 private rental unit owner. Eachethnography interview took place on one occasion at each informant’s residence with, most of
the cases, his/her spouse or other adult family members being present. They were asked to share
their experiences after the event in an unstructured interview which usually took 2 to 2 and a halfhours.
Most of interviewed GLPRIH residents showed high propensity to be independent from thegovernment support. They began rental housing search soon after the disaster, found interimunits by their own efforts and they were willing to pay their own rent. This was done way before
Natori city office announced the introduction of GLPRIH policy on May 10, 2011. Families
with elderly and/or people with disability who found emergency shelters being too hard to use(non-universal) also opted for alternatives to mass-provided/produced general shelters andprefabricated temporary housing units. The stable job and household income allowed them toinitiate voluntary interim housing hunts.
Furthermore, a large proportion of the interviewed GLPRIH residents have bought and built theirown homes within 2 years. They have planned the individual housing recovery plans
independent from their old community of Yuriage land readjustment/recovery planning process.
Those who were quick to find a new land and rebuilt the new home were typically 1) notcarrying any house loan mortgages of the previous and now non-existent houses, 2) received
earthquake insurance money for rebuilding, 3) felt compelled to make quick decisions to buy
because the available land seemed to run out soon, and 4) were facing a mortgage loan
qualification age limit if they were in their late forties to early fifties.
Those who rebuilt their homes in new land felt a lack of daily communication with their newneighbors but were willing to spend long time in order to develop human relationships. However,at the same time, once they rebuilt their own houses, they felt that they were no longer
considered being the impacted survivors. The lack of support was especially felt in the areas ofpsychological care for their children. The more details on the ethnography research results will
be covered in the current workshop by Tanaka and Shigekawa (2014) [1].
Group Characteristics: Focus Group Workshop Research Early Findings
31 participants from four different groups of the earthquake/tsunami impacted Natori citizens
were invited to a three hour long focus group workshop on January 27, 2013. Those included 7
from GLPRIH, 13 from prefabricated temporary housing complexes, 5 from restored own
homes, and 6 from newly built own homes. They provided altogether 143 opinion cards withregard to what would facilitate their individual life recovery processes. Those 143 opinions werethen grouped into 15 categories by the participants during the workshop session.
The association between the 4 types of housing (GLPRIH, prefabricated housing, restored own
house, and newly rebuilt house) and 17 life recovery promotion categories were analyzed bycorrespondence analysis (see Figure 1). GLPRIH and newly rebuilt groups showed very similar
characteristics with regard to their views on what would help for them to feel that their individual
lives are back to normalcy: Those two groups shared their valuations for positive self-governing
attitude, infrastructural redevelopment, future pension and medical services when they become
older, physical and psychological stress care, family understanding/support, social ties, andcurrent medical/social services/education services. These results seem to triangulate and validate
the findings from individual ethnography interview results. Compared with GLPRIH and newly
rebuilt groups, those who were residing in prefabricated housing units were characterized byneeds for such categories as living expenses and business start-up capital and land. Finally,
those who repaired their own homes on the original land were characterized by such needs forsafety and security, livelihood restoration fund and more government supports. The more details
on the focus group workshop research results will be presented in the current workshop by
Matsukawa, Tsujioka, and Tatsuki (2014) [2].
Community Recovery Processes
In addition to the above basic research on individual life recovery processes, the third team hasbeen focusing on the interrelations between individual recovery and community rebuilding
processes. The aim of the team is to identify those parameters that might determine the nature of
their interrelations. This team has been monitoring consensus building processes in Yuriage
community and their impacts on individual house rebuilding decision making processes. Basedon these observations, the team is also aiming at developing preventative strategies before thecommunity rebuilding process have become complicated. It also aims to explore ways to induce
cooperation among different and conflicting stakeholders.
Development of Disaster Case Management Database SystemThe first three teams of the current projects are all concerned with identifying parameters thatmight determine individual life recovery processes. The next two teams are more concernedwith implementing solutions to make impacts on individual lives by measuring and directly orindirectly manipulating these parameters. Upon the identification of important parameters forindividual recovery, the fourth team is going to develop and apply operational measures in orderto scale these parameters on individual basis. These measurements will provide a basis for theassessment of individual recovery needs and corresponding services and resources. The fourthteam has been developing a prototype database system that would support the assessment andresource matching processes. As of October, 2014, all Natori impacted citizens administrative
information will be stored to the prototype system and the system will be running for field tests.
Community Social Work Model Building
Community social work process becomes crucial where there is no formal resources available
that would satisfy particular individual needs and therefore resource mobilization efforts areneeded. The fifth team has chosen two project communities and have been conducting action
research on empowering the impacted citizens and helping them collaborate with local formal
and informal helper network. The team is aiming at developing, implementing and evaluation aworking community social work model for GLPRIH residents.
Conclusions
GLPRIH has becomes one of the major policy measures but the relevant policies and programs
have not yet been well established. This paper provided an overview of Natori study project
which deals with parameter identification of individual life recovery processes of GLPRIH andwith R/D of effective implementation measures. Internal and external validity of the current
project needs to be tested, however, by further studies.
Acknowledgments
This research project was supported by JST, RISTEX.
References
1.

Tanaka, S., and Shigekawa, K. Housing recovery processes of the temporary housing dwellers for the 2011
great east japan earthquake: Natori city case study. Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on
Urban Disaster Reduction. 2014.

2. Matsukawa, A. Tsujioka, A., and Tatsuki, S. Life recovery processes and the challenges ofgovernment-leased-private-rental-interim-housing (GLPRIH) in wide dispersed areas: The2013 grass-roots life recovery assessment workshop in Natori city in Miyagi prefecture.
Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Urban Disaster Reduction. 2014.