In this paper, I would like to focus on special nursing homes for the elderly, to discuss the commencement of demolition which was carried out suddenly by an administration initiative in February of this year (2003), and to discuss the change from community to institutional welfare, and the future of special nursing homes for the elderly. Since the peak of aging is predicted to occur in 2025, these institutions will be superannuated gradually for about twenty years, and it will stop being equal to use someday, although the country has advanced construction of special nursing homes for the elderly using a large amount of tax revenues. Under these circumstances, "new style special nursing homes" and the "local adhesion, small scale and various functions type residences" were announced from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. Furthermore, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare proclaimed an exclusion of medical rooms etc. from the institutional standards suddenly
