Special yearend services kicked off Tuesday at 136 municipalities and 78 Hello Work job-placement centers in 23 prefectures to offer counseling for unemployed people.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>Although government offices are usually closed between Dec. 29 and Jan. 3, these local governments have responded to a request from a central government task force to assist needy people. Some municipalities are also offering lodging for people without jobs and homes.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>According to the welfare ministry, just over 200 local governments have responded to the central government request, but around 70 of them asked that their services not be publicized. A ministry source said they may fear an influx of unemployed people into their municipalities or a surge in the number of applications for welfare benefits.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>Most of the emergency counseling services were to end Wednesday, but the cities of Morioka, in Iwate Prefecture, Miyazaki and Tokyo will offer services through Jan. 3.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>At the National Olympics Memorial Youth Center in Shibuya Ward, which the Tokyo Metropolitan Government began using Monday as a temporary shelter for a maximum 500 unemployed people, 469, including seven women, had checked in as of 8 p.m. Tuesday.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>Since the center has almost reached its capacity, the metropolitan government was to start using a separate lodging facility inside the center that can accommodate up to 300 people from Wednesday, officials said.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>Physicians, lawyers and other professionals are providing advisory services on health, employment and debts at the center.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>A 63-year-old man, who had been working at a book-binding factory until he lost his job last week, is among the people staying at the center. He had been sleeping in saunas after he could no longer afford to pay rent and had to leave his apartment in May 2007.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>'I cannot rent a new apartment because I have no one who will become a guarantor for me. I hope I can get a room by obtaining public assistance,' he said.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>In a counseling service center in Nagoya, a 49-year-old man said he has been sleeping in Internet cafes or in his car for the past four months.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>He is unable to obtain welfare benefits because he owns a car, but he cannot abandon it because he needs it for his day-labor job. 'It's so cold –

in the car and I could no longer stand it," he said.

Meanwhile, some of the antipoverty campaigners who built a tent village in Tokyo's Hibiya Park last year have set up tents in a park near Hello Work Shinjuku for laid off workers.

The tent village last year drew media attention to the problem of temporary workers who live in company dormitories and then lose their accommodation when their employers terminate their contracts.