Japan PM says disaster shelters should welcome all, including homeless

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Tuesday that evacuation centers should welcome all disaster victims, after two homeless people had been refused entry at the weekend in Tokyo as the capital braced for Typhoon Hagibis.

“Evacuation centers should let anyone in who has come to evacuate,” Abe said in parliament. “We will look into the facts and take appropriate measures.”

Staff at an evacuation center in Tokyo's Taito ward turned two homeless people away on Saturday because they did not have an address, a ward official told Reuters. The staff told them that the shelter was only meant for ward residents.

“We will consider how to support people without an address in these situations by looking at other local authorities' cases and by taking in various views,” Taito ward spokesman Shunsuke Tabata said.