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Homeless people in Japan

Exidez

先輩
23 Nov 2002
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I am living in Aomori at the moment as a one year exchange student. However i went to Osaka as a bit of a visit with some friends.

As we were walking down the streets of Osaka we saw a homeless person looking through all the garbage for food.
My friends and I all felt very sorry for him and coicidently had a large bottle of Asahi beer in our bag. We pulled the bottle out and said in japanese this is a gift to you.
The sad thing was he didnt exept it! He didnt want the beer. The homeless people here must be differant from the ones in Australia (where i live)

I asked around and the reason why they are homeless is differant from the reasons in Australia. Usualy in Australia people are homeless because of family problems, hate their family, hate their life, drug addictions.
However the reason is differant in japan right?
i herd it was something to do wirth respect for there family...

does anyone know why they are homeless in Japan?
 
The reason in Japan is often because they lost their job and are too ashamed to go back to their family. They choose this lifestyle, instead of asking for help eventhough they could. As a result, they won't accept help, even a bottle of beer from a stranger.
 
Exidez said:
I asked around and the reason why they are homeless is differant from the reasons in Australia. Usualy in Australia people are homeless because of family problems, hate their family, hate their life, drug addictions.
However the reason is differant in japan right?
i herd it was something to do wirth respect for there family...

does anyone know why they are homeless in Japan?

For many the same reasons there are homless in Australia - though perhaps fewer because of drugs. Some get fired from their job, some get divorced, some lose their homes and lose everything for any number of reasons. It is not that homeless people in Japan are living some nobel dream. The causes of human suffering tend to be universal.

Exidez said:
My friends and I all felt very sorry for him and coicidently had a large bottle of Asahi beer in our bag. We pulled the bottle out and said in japanese this is a gift to you.
The sad thing was he didnt exept it! He didnt want the beer. The homeless people here must be differant from the ones in Australia (where i live)

Perhaps he was insulted. I would be. To be quite blunt (not attacking you or your charity) I don't think I would take charity from a bunch of tourists either, and not if it was something that was only going to make me even hungrier than I probably already would be. Don't assume because he doesn't want alcohol that that alone makes him different. There are any number of reasons. Perhaps drink drove him to the streets to begin with, perhaps no one had ever offered him a gift in before, maybe he just didn't like Asahi :)

There are a ton of pages on the net about homeless people in Japan. Google is a good place to start. Good luck!
 
Heads Up!

Homeless people in Japan present an unique problem. Alot of the cause has to do with the collapse of the bubble economy, but I won't get into it here.

Instead , why not help? (For those of you living in Japan.) Volunteer at an udon kitchen! I happen to know a place in Osaka that will take any help it can get. I'll post the contact info later. You'll need some Japanese ability, as the people running it speak no English.


:sorry:
 
Udon kitchen = "soup kitchen"

It's basically part of an establishment to help the homeless in Osaka. As part of their programs, they hand out free bowls of udon and such.

I know one of the guys in charge of it. After I go home today I'll dig up some contact info or at least find the location of the place and post it here.

At the moment, all I can remember is that it was in South Osaka, maybe near Tobita.
 
Mandylion said:
The causes of human suffering tend to be universal.

I think soo too. It's just that behaviour of those people are not the same from one country to another.
In France, homelesses would have for sure accept a can of beer.
Where I live there are homelesses in the streets, specially where there are a lot of people (center town, old town). There is also now foreigners (maybe from eastern Europe countries) begging in the street and asking people if they don't have a coin or a cigarette.

I think that all Homelesses are not like that, and that people really in the need don't ask for help.
I know one person who once helped in an establissment for homeless and poor people, providing lunch, cloths, and food given by supermarkets. This person was just disgusted by behaviour of some of those "poor" people. Some of them where complaining about things they find/can't find there ... for free!!!! :sick:
Sence of ... proud is really different from Japan to France for sure.
 
Here it is;

It's in Airin, Kamagasaki at Sankaku-koen.

Not to perturb anyone who wants to volunteer, but I'm not going to post my friend's name and number. I don't think anyone would want there personal info floating around the net like that.

Anyways, if anyone is interested, let me know!
 
Mad Pierrot, I really upreciate some activities like that udon kitchen. Very admirable.

But I was thinking..is it concidered rude in Japan to go and offer help to someone in need? Such as giving them some food/money/etc. Sure I understand that it might be insulting (->Mandy's message), but is it generally still approven to offer help?
How do Japanese themselves think about the homeless? Do Japanese themselves help them?

In Finland the majority of homeless people are in Helsinki, and the problem has risen in a few years I think. There aren't yet that many of them, and I think that's one of the reasons it's hard for people to cope with..quite many ignore them, don't pay any attention to them etc. Most of us are, I guess, even irritated by them, since so many of them are absolutely drunk..but maybe those who really need help(and don't have the money or the ways to get their alcohol)are sort of "underground"?
I myself do feel sorry for the homeless, since you never ever know what's going to happen in life. One day it might be me in the streets, no matter how I tried to make things work ok. I have to admit though, that those really drunk ones scare me off..
 
Much to my surprise, I was accosted for the first time the other day by a homeless man who actually pulled at my sleeve asking for a thousand yen... Maybe the homeless is Nagoya aren`t so ashamed they won`t ask a foreigner or two for some cash, heh. What concerns me more is how in some areas mini-villages seem to spring up in the most surprising areas. For instance, if you walk out of Nagoya station beneath JR Towers and head to the crosswalk across from Bic Camera you will see many homeless have set up shelter in one of the most heavily trafficked pedestrian areas downtown. Strange indeed.
 
There are exceptions to every circumstances.

Rude to offer help to those in need? I don't think so. At least, at the soup kitchen, no. The people who go there want help. And, in that context I would say it's okay to help them. They're asking.

Not that there is anythng wrong with what Exidez did, but offering help at relief center is very different than offering alcohol to a random stranger.

From what little I know about the situation of some homeless people in Japan, it's as Maciamo said. As it was explained to me, many of these people came to the cities during the 1970s and 80s and made money in day labor. Now, with the collapse of the bubble economy, work is harder to find. I've heard as well that many are too ashamed to go home. The thing is, many are still looking for work. Yakuza are known to hire from this homeless day labor pool for dangerous construction work and such. So, I understand that many are constantly between cheap day labor and illegal work, staying in flop houses when they can. I've seen one. A dirty, old, run-down building, probably condemned but still owned by someone. It costs something like a few dollars a night to stay in a dirty closet sized room. That's also a reason why so many homeless have taken to living in their park-tent communities. They're cleaner and free.
 
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hmm...i think its interesting that the first time i truly saw homeless people was in the u.s. capital, washington d.c, which has, from what i heard, quite a large homeless population.

most of the posts refer to the homeless as if they are all male. is this true? are all the homeless in certain areas male? if so, would this be a result of the 'pride' thing?
 
If you want to see something really impressive, go check out the homeless "village" at Yoyogi park (Tokyo). I know they have these types of areas elsewhere too, but this one really suprised me because of how incredibly neat and well-organized it was. Some of the little houses (made out of those blue plastic sheets) even had doors on them!
 
Well...I once volunteered for an establishment called "les restos du coeur" and it's incredibly crowded during december, and we were like 20 to bring in/out the food o_O
 
m477 said:
If you want to see something really impressive, go check out the homeless "village" at Yoyogi park (Tokyo). I know they have these types of areas elsewhere too, but this one really suprised me because of how incredibly neat and well-organized it was. Some of the little houses (made out of those blue plastic sheets) even had doors on them!
The article cited in this previous thread also talks about the peculiarly Japanese homeless culture....Osaka must be progressive in caring for the down and out as it was the first in the country to do a survey of the homeless population as well.

Homeless


They do tend to hang around main stations in Tokyo, Ueno, Shinjuku etc, and apparently Nagoya as well. I'm not sure if day-labour jobs would require any transportation money or not :?
 
some of them homeless folks choose to be that way, but most are really down on their luck...
and to think that you didn't see many homeless people back in the '80's.....two decades brings many changes in the society.....
 
Day labor transportation...

They get picked up! Heh, I'm not joking. In the morning vans come to gather up the people they need and take off. At least, I know they do this in a few places in Osaka. It's nothing nice though. More like a guy and a van coming from some company, grabbing a work crew, and taking them off to do dangerous work for low pay.
 
Most of the homeless where I live (Himeji) make a living collecting scrap metal and aluminum cans which they can sell for a small amount of money. In Kobe and Osaka, they have started selling copies of 'the Big Issue', a magazine whose purpose is to give jobs to the homeless people who sell copies on the street.
 
I've heard about the "Big Issue." Last time I visited the kitchen was 2 years ago before they started selling it. I hope they do well! I don't suppose they have an English issue.....

Are any other Americans here familiar with "Street Wise?" I think it's only in Chicago. Same concept as the "Big Issue."
 
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