Helping the homeless in Osaka

The first thing I noticed was the smell of stale urine; then the rats. The scraps of newspapers used as blankets blowing in the breeze and the little stalls lining the roadside where grubby broken-looking men were hawking the fruits of a morning spent rifling through garbage heaps in search of knickknacks. Behind us lay the gleaming towers of Japanese commerce lining Mido Suji avenue, the neon signs of Nipponbashi's Den Den Town electronics superstores and the teenage fashion victims of Shinsaibashi's America Mura. But here, just twenty minutes south of downtown Osaka, I was coming face to face with a Japan no tourist brochure would admit to, and no Government official would recognise. This was my introduction to Nishinari-ku, a no-go zone located between Shin-Imamiya station and Tennoji Park synonymous with the worst ravages of post-recession Osaka, the homeless capital of Japan. They must have recognised our van coming because as we drew up behind the Nishinari-ku Day Labourers Centre, I saw the human stampede approaching: hundreds of men, some half-naked, encrusted with dirt, clutching their possessions. They reached the van and immediately formed a orderly queue as we prepared to hand out food and clothes; scenes of intense social deprivation all too familiar to my fellow volunteers. It was just another Onigiri day in Osaka. "The queues are getting longer and, with winter approaching, we're desperately low on resources," sighs 26-year-old volunteer Emily Knox, who works at an Osaka language school. "For me, there are three kinds of homeless people. Those who have given up on life, the mentally ill and the ones who have fallen on hard times but really want to work," she adds. "Everyone needs help but really we can only hope to get this last group back into society." Onigiri aka rice balls day was started in July 1998 by the Osaka-based International Outreach Association (IOA) and has continued on the last Sunday of each month ever since with the menu changing to include hot food in winter. Local estimates suggest 1,500 people sleep rough in Nishinari-ku alone. The number of available jobs for casual day labourers has dropped to its lowest level in 10 years, while the number of public construction projects in Osaka Prefecture is down by 20%. Local charity group say the decline in work has been matched by an increase in people sleeping on the streets. Doss-house lodgings in the area charge up to Y2,000 a night (£12) and 40% of rooms are regularly left empty as workers - with an average age of 54 - cant afford the price. To compound the misery, The Mainichi Shimbun (www.mainichi.co.jp/english) - a local daily broadsheet - reported in September that Osaka's homeless were increasingly falling victim to a summer terror campaign by local youths. One 67-year-old homeless man was beaten to death by teenagers in July solely because, as one youth later admitted, "we wanted to try out a fighting game for real." Members of local charity group, the Nojukushu Network, have responded by patrolling the streets at night and had recorded over 50 acts of violence against homeless in the three months to August this year alone, ranging from air gun attacks to beatings with wooden sticks. These incidents reveal something dark and sinister about contemporary Japan and its attitude towards the socially disadvantaged. "I was surprised by the attitude of Japanese friends," explains Emily. "They had no sympathy for the homeless. I saw the look of disdain in their eyes when they walked past. Thats why I got involved. At least in the UK there is a system in place to help - in Japan these people really are alone." Earlier that day we had gathered at the bar owned by the Haitian-born founder of the International Outreach Organisation, Max Francois, to start making the rice balls. 20 people dashed around carrying bowls of water, while rice balls were rolled and passed along the manufacturing line. In between shifts, I grabbed a few words with Max who was lining up his favourite Sunday morning comedown reggae tracks between rice cooking shifts. "I've heard reports of up to 10,000 homeless in Osaka alone and anyone can see the problem is getting worse," he says. "In the last ten years Ive seen lots more little blue plastic tents around town but when I asked Japanese friends what we could do, they would just shrug, "They're lazy people, they choose to live that way." "Japanese pride doesnt allow the homeless to beg but when we go around with the food it's obvious that theyre starving," he adds. "Besides, people in Japan tend to be very private but with gaijin [foreigners] and Japanese working together for a common aim we hope to break that barrier." Several hours, 300 rice ball packets and 20 pairs of aching hands later, we set off across town in Max's van. First stop: Tennoji Park. This area has traditionally served as home to an itinerant homeless community living out of makeshift - albeit perfectly clean and orderly - houses built from cardboard and blue plastic sheets. Every Sunday, the inhabitants of this cardboard city come together and crank up their karaoke machines so we deliver the rice balls to an accompaniment of crooning Japanese torch songs. Skirting the perimeter of Tennoji Zoo, we enter the main entrance to the park where Max instantly recognises Kaneo Takahata, a 54-year-old erstwhile engineer from Tokyo who has been living on the streets of Osaka for a year. Every day, Max explains taking me over to make the customary formal introductions, Kaneo-san gets up at 5am and collects rubbish from the street to sell. In his spare time he studies English and writes poetry. Chatting away in a mixture of Japanese and English, Kaneo is intelligent and friendly, hes happy to tell me about life on streets but deliberately vague about his family. Max later explains that many former salarymen who lost their jobs in the recession were too embarrassed to tell their families and simply went AWOL, moving to live on the streets of another city. Others came to the city from rural provinces looking for work and were too embarrassed to return home empty-handed. It's widely known that suicide levels in Japan are currently at one of the highest levels since the Second World War. And, as Kaneo-san explains, life on the streets is plagued with fear. "I am alone now. I see many problems in the homeless community and, after the attacks this summer, it's even more dangerous for us. We are afraid," he says, handing me some of his poems to read. We end the afternoon in Nishinari where the food supply runs out before even half the queue has been fed. In the van back to Osaka, the mood is pensive. Max desperately wants to expand the operation but resources are limited and problems seem, at times, insurmountable. In the short term they're helping Kaneo-san get cleaned up for job interviews in the hope of getting him back on his feet. "Until the Japanese people start to take responsibility for own their social problems, I doubt things will get any easier," sighs Max. "We're determined to keep on feeding the homeless and help people like Kaneo-san back into society. If we can only do that one small thing, then I guess it's still better than nothing." Contact the International Outreach Organisation (IOA) in Osaka www.i-o-a.org/email info@i-a-o.org

Published on 12/27/01