[Nyororin]

Originally Posted by steven

I wanted to make a comment about the welfare housing situation though. I'm sure they vary a little depending on the area. One day I was driving to the mountains as I always do, but I had stopped off at one of my local hardware stores on the way there and took kind of a different road than I usually do. I stumbled upon almost like a slum. My wife happened to be in the car with me at the time and I asked her what the deal was as I had never seen anything like that in Japan up to then. She said it was probably government/welfare housing. It was pretty crazy... there were like holes in the walls and windows missing and the whole nine yards. At the time it was hot and humid so I'm sure that was working out, but now that it's winter and snowing almost every day I'm not so sure. I still don't know for sure what they were though so I really can't say.

There is more of a chance that it was an area with a lot of abandoned houses (if it was houses and not apartments.) I have never heard of houses being maintained as welfare housing. It is all apartment building type stuff. There are a lot of areas with abandoned houses left to sort of rot... Were you sure that people were living in them? Or could they have been used as storage, if you saw people in the vicinity?
Company housing is also a possibility. If there were any large factories in the area - or used to be factories - there is a fair chance that it was originally company housing that is now no longer maintained.

Anyway though, holes-in-the-wall and missing windows does not strike me as welfare housing. There are standards that have to be kept for that. It sounds more like company or just flat out abandoned stuff.

There are a lot of danchi out there that are in bad condition, set to be torn down... After the final residents leave. There is usually one or two old old women who refuse to move out for their final years, so they have a huge virtually empty building sitting there rotting for years.

Real "welfare housing" are heavily discounted rooms in normal danchi. A room will often be provided for free or for half or quarter the normal cost. There doesn`t seem to be a whole lot of dedicated welfare only housing. It tends to be more support for housing in a regular danchi. There doesn`t seem to be a difference even in the countryside - danchi are sort of nationwide.

I know this isn't true some of the time, but I think that the way the grandparents raised their kids might have influenced their drug use... so why start the process all over again with the grand children? I've kind of seen that happen in America before...

I think that in these sort of cases it isn`t so much that the grandparents are thought to be the root of the problem, but that they are more likely to hand the kids back over. They`re more likely to have more faith in the parents, so give them more access to the children than they should be given.
I am really very up in the air about "blaming the parents" when it comes to life decisions made by adults or near-adults. My mother was, well, quite a mess... But I find it very hard to think that my grandparents had anything to do with it. Her outcome was up to circumstances and her own personality driving her decision making.

My uncle - a successful architect. My mother - a drugged up mess. My uncle #2 - doesn`t really count as he has a real mental disorder (was normal until the symptoms kicked in). My aunt - responsible and hardworking.

The only real mess in there is my mother. My uncle #2 is a mess, but, well, he has schizophrenia and refuses to stay on meds ... So it isn`t really my grandparent`s fault. The other aunt and uncle are fine, normal, and have not made messes out of their lives. My grandparents also raised me, and I certainly feel that I had an excellent upbringing while in their care.

Which makes me wonder-- if people get caught with meth in Japan do their kids get taken away or anything along those lines? I know in America after the umpteenth time after being caught with hard drugs kids start getting taken out of the picture... but with Japan being more strict in regards to drugs I wonder if they don't have any policies like that?

I believe the policy is the same as any other time parents are "unfit" - the children either go to family or to a center. A single offense is enough to get the unfit label... It`s also enough for one parent (who is not using drugs) to secure a divorce and the children.
Even a bit more indirectly it can lead to the children being put into care... An example I heard (far enough away from me that I can`t confirm it - friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend sort of thing) was that the father was caught and naturally lost his job... Was unable to provide money to support his (newly)ex-wife and children, and she in turn had no skills so could not support them. The children were put into a center until she could figure out what to do.