Public housing residents' associations in Sendai struggle to find leaders

Japan Times

10-03-2025

Residents in public housing in Sendai, where many people who survived the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011, live, are rapidly aging, and residents' associations are struggling to find people who can serve as board members to work on maintaining the communities.
'We have to make it widely recognized that we have no one who can become a new board member,' said a section leader of the Mebuki residents' association — which comprises residents of the Moniwa No. 2 municipal-run housing complex in Sendai's Taihaku Ward — at a regular board meeting held at the building's meeting place in early February.
The section leader gave the remark as the current board members were discussing who should succeed Yoshiaki Nakano, 76, the association's chair, whose term will expire at the end of March.
Most of the board members are in their 70s or older.
'Do you understand what it means for a person with health issues, who has no job or money, to serve as the association's chair?' Nakano said as he left the meeting.
Nakano was diagnosed with colorectal cancer about three years ago. His physical strength noticeably declined after he underwent surgery and was hospitalized for two months.
Immediately after he was released from the hospital, he quit his business of exchanging window glasses and doing plumbing repairs that he had run as the sole proprietor.
The Moniwa No. 2 housing complex started accepting residents in 2016. Out of 90 households in the complex, only 60 belong to the residents' association and pay association fees.
Roughly 40% of the residents who applied to live there did so under a regular process, not as those whose homes had been destroyed by the 2011 disaster. Nakano is one of the residents in that smaller group.
As the residents' association faced the difficulties of building a community consisting of people with varying backgrounds, in 2023, Nakano, then a section leader, was asked by a then-board member to become the chair, and he accepted the proposal.
In December last year, the association organized a Christmas party at the complex's meeting place. Fewer than 20 people attended the party, and they were the usual faces, or mainly elderly association members.
Nakano speaks during the association's board meeting on Feb. 2.
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Kahoku Shimpo
At 10 a.m., led by Nakano, the participants made a toast with cups of tea. Soon afterward, one of the participants noticed that a man who had said the previous day he would come to the party was not there.
A man in charge of general affairs, worried about the man who was absent, called him.
'I've been drinking. ... I'm not in a condition to meet everyone,' the man replied in a feeble voice.
The man, who had been drinking alone from early morning, did not come to the Christmas party. But others were able to get in touch with him via a phone call.
Nakano says he has continued to serve as the chair because he feels it is important to maintain such relationships.
'I wish I could quit, but I don't think anyone would want to take up the task,' Nakano said. 'I can't just give it up.'
A decade has passed since people started moving into disaster public housing in Sendai.
Elderly people — defined as those age 65 and older — make up 43.9% of the residents in such housing. This is 18.7 percentage points higher than the ratio of the elderly population in the entire city.
At the Tagonishi No. 2 public housing complex in Sendai's Miyagino Ward, the board members of the residents' association are all in their 80s.
The association was once disbanded at the end of March in 2023 after the relations among board members soured. Its meeting place was even temporarily locked up.
Four months later, Hiroshi Omura, 83, a former board member, led the move to reestablish the association and became its chair.
Omura's house in Miyagino Ward was completely destroyed by the 2011 earthquake. He moved into the Tagonishi No. 2 housing complex in 2015. His wife moved in with him, but her health deteriorated, and she now lives in a care facility.
Two people who work with him at the association — the vice chair and the person in charge of accounting — are both 85 years old.
'We want to help each other as people in similar circumstances,' he said with a smile, though his words hinted at worries he may have.
This section features topics and issues from the Tohoku region covered by the Kahoku Shimpo, the largest newspaper in Tohoku. The original article was published Feb. 19.