THE STUDY ON COMMUNITY ACTIVITY BASE UTILIZING VACANT HOUSES

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Other Title
  • 空き家活用による住民福祉活動拠点の確保に関する研究
  • 空き家活用による住民福祉活動拠点の確保に関する研究 : 生活支援に取り組む住民福祉活動拠点に適した空き家の条件
  • アキヤ カツヨウ ニ ヨル ジュウミン フクシ カツドウ キョテン ノ カクホ ニ カンスル ケンキュウ : セイカツ シエン ニ トリクム ジュウミン フクシ カツドウ キョテン ニ テキシタ アキヤ ノ ジョウケン
  • -Conditions of vacant house suitable for community activity base working on living support
  • -生活支援に取り組む住民福祉活動拠点に適した空き家の条件-

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Abstract

<p>In Japan, the aging rate is expected to increase up to 33.4% and the rate of one-person households up to 37.2% in 2035. Since it is deemed that the current social system cannot afford such circumstances, interest is growing on local communities and resident welfare activities, both from local and political points of view. Local interest is also growing on the utilization of increasing vacant houses. According to the Housing and Land Survey 2013, the total number of vacant houses in Japan is 8.2 million which accounts for 13.5% of total houses in Japan. Among the vacant houses, besides holiday houses and houses for rent or sale, the rate of “other houses” including the problematic vacant houses is rapidly increasing from 32.1% in 2003 to 35.4% in 2008 and to 38.8% in 2013. Many are individually owned houses inherited from deceased parents to children who already owns their houses and left unsold or unoccupied due to the owners’ affection to their family homes or to matters of demolition costs. Therefore, such owners are assumed to hold the vacant houses until any compelling reasons occur to sell them.</p><p>The problem of the difficulty in securing community activity bases may be reduced if vacant houses can be rented free or at low cost. This is a beneficial way for both the local area and the community activity because utilizing vacant houses as community activity bases may solve vacant house problems, community activities may proceed smoothly assimilating into local communities by using pre-existing houses and the expected free or low rent is suitable to financially fragile community activities.</p><p>To define the conditions of vacant houses suitable for activity bases, we made a survey on the District Volunteer Center, an institution of the District Council of Social Welfare of Chigasaki City, Kanagawa Prefecture which is a precedent example of using vacant houses for activity bases. The results showed that the ideal conditions of vacant houses for community activity bases were to have “independent office space”, “volunteer lounge space” and “space for multi-purpose use”. Many of the vacant houses were second-hand housings. The merit of using a second-hand vacant house is that the rent may be free or low, however, on the other hand, there is a demerit of a possibility of moving out due to request for evacuation from the owner. If this demerit is taken merely as a risk, utilizing vacant houses may not proceed. It is therefore essential to develop an environment where information on vacant houses is accessible, making smooth relocation to better housings at any time. Information on vacant houses is hard to obtain, however, if opportunities are provided to meet owners suffering from handling their vacant houses and willing to rent to someone who can take care of such houses, there may be a chance to use such houses as community activity bases at free of charge or at low rent. Measures for approaching owners of vacant houses should be discussed in the future. Information on vacant houses are currently obtained through networks of the members of community activities or through real estate agents. Developing further measures may solve the problems of insufficient information and the members’ anxiety of relocation that may become a blockade of discussing the utilization of vacant houses. It is required to recognize where the information on vacant houses is accumulated and to structure a system of obtaining and providing information that may organically connect various accumulation points.</p>

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