Signs of Recession – Homeless People Line Up in Japan
I live in Northern, California. We have homeless on every street corner, in the nearby park, sitting out in front of the nearby supermarket where we shop regularly.
What’s more, the line is getting longer…extending as far as Japan?
Someone snapped this photo of homeless people in Japan lined up at tent village in Hibiya Park.
Surely and sadly the line will grow much longer before it grows shorter.
Homeless in Japan
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January 5, 2009
Are you sure that this is a line of homeless people? Ok, the tents in the background are most likely tents of homeless people, but the line of people in the foreground looks more like a typical waiting line. The people in it don’t look like they are homeless. If they are, they surely haven’t been homeless for long.
Luckily in Germany we don’t have that many homeless people. Most people here who don’t have a place, simply refuse help from the government and chose to live like this on their own account.
January 11, 2009
I’ve been reading a lot about homelessness in Japan and I’d like to make a comment about that last comment.
The people in the photo don’t look homeless because the Japanese homeless take great pride in their appearances…They wash regularly in the public baths or in the restrooms in the parks (public restrooms are free prevalent in Japan). They often live in little tent communities in the parks…where they have barbers and gas powered stoves. They wash their clothes…it’s sort of like camping.
I think the difference is that in Japan, fewer than 10 percent of the homeless are mentally ill or alcoholics or drug addicts. The majorety are single, elderly men “normal citizens” who were laid off and can’t find a job due to age discrimination.