Just before the global financial crisis, the homeless population in Japan started to change. The country was faced with a growing number of young homeless people.
Along with being homeless, they were different in many ways from those who ended up in the streets following the collapse of the economic bubble in the 1990s. While most people in the existing homeless population were over 50, many in the emerging population were in their 20s or 30s. More mysteriously, they did not appear in the streets.
In order to find out what was behind the scenes, The Big Issue Japan Foundation, a charity organization that works in collaboration with street paper The Big Issue Japan and other institutions, carried out research and spoke to young homeless people and professionals.
Cafe refugees
After graduating from high school, teenager Jun Kawasaki* secured a full-time job in a car factory. Over the next nine years, his skills improved, and he was promoted.
“The job was quite fulfilling,” he says. However, his life started to change when the recession hit Japan.
“Gradually there was less work, and more people were made redundant. And my turn eventually came.”
He left the city and managed to find a part-time job in a fabric factory, but it did not last long. The company went bankrupt, and Jun was back to where he started from. Running out of money, he gave up his mobile phone, slept in Internet cafes and kept looking for a job.
“When my saving almost hit the bottom, I found The Big Issue Japan.”
Jun, 30, is among thousands of youngsters seeking shelter in an Internet cafe that provides a computer and reclining chair in a cubicle. They are so-called “Net cafe refugees” and are only one of the groups that make up the homelessness youth population in Japan.
Are they homeless?
A person is homeless if he or she sleeps in parks, river banks, streets, stations and other public spaces, according to Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. People like Jun, who have roof and wall, are left out of the category of “homeless” although they do not have an address.
Concerns for net cafe refugees first came to light in 2007. The Japanese government revealed that there were more than 5,400 young people sleeping in Internet cafes.
However, Shoji Sano, co-founder of The Big Issue Japan and chair of the Big Issue Japan Foundation, fears that this is just the tip of an iceberg and that there are as many as three million youngsters at the risk of becoming homeless in Japan. The official figures excluded those in other venues open for 24 hours such as comic cafes and kiosks that could also be used for shelter.
“The emergence of Internet cafe refugees indicates the emergence of ‘invisible’ homelessness as they don’t appear in the streets,” he adds.
Unsurprisingly, the collapse of the financial sector in the following year did not help the situation. Consequently, between July 2008 and July 2010, the average age of The Big Issue Japan vendor in Tokyo dropped by 11 years from 56 to 45.
Working poor in a spiral
In an aim to raise awareness and provide support for youngsters without homes, The Big Issue Japan Foundation carried out a survey with 50 young homeless people. The results showed that all of them have gone through some sort of uneasy childhood.
For example, some had experienced domestic violence or come from an orphanage. The majority of them had grown up in poverty or unstable financial conditions.
These backgrounds are reflected in the youth’s educational history, which was inclined to end at secondary school or high school at best. It also affects their mental health, as nearly half of them tend to suffer from depression and a few are in need of medical treatment.
Takeshi Kotoda*, 23, left home after he finished his secondary school to escape abuse by his parents. “My father was a member of the Defense Force. He was violent and threatened me every day that he would put me in the Force too. And my mother completely ignored me ever since my brother was born.”
Too often, young people descend into homelessness once they enter a cycle of short-term employment contracts that involve mostly low-skilled, low-paid work, which does not provide basic social benefits such as health insurance. Eventually, working conditions get worse and wages lower as they work one job after another. It is hard to break the chain.
Toshi Nishita*, 36, says he has worked at nuclear plants as well as at factories and on construction sites because he did not have choices.
As young people lose become unemplyed or lose contact with their family or friends and face homelessness, they are also losing self-confidence and self-esteem, according to a report by The Big Issue Japan Foundation. By the time they have come through Internet cafes and end up on the streets, they feel completely isolated from mainstream society.
“One of the homeless issues around young people is that they often don’t ask for help,” says Karin Amamiya, vice president of Anti-Poverty Network in Japan.
“Many of them want to hide that they are homeless or vulnerably housed, and this is why they often don’t look for information on how to get back on track in their life.
“At the same time, many have traumatic experiences at home or work and therefore it is hard for them to believe that there is some help out there,” she said.
The complexities of youth homelessness require a lot of resources.
Following the interviews with young people in the streets, The Big Issue Japan Foundation set up Young Homeless Support Network. The project brings together various organizations, that provide support for employment, mental health and disability.
A total of 25 organizations and more than 200 people participated in conferences organized by the network between 2011 and 2012.
“Homelessness is not only about housing and employment,” said Michiko Miyamoto, chair of the Young Homeless Support Networks.
“In order for young people to recover from the situation, it is essential to have a comforting place and self-esteem. It is also important to look at how they could rebuild relationships with people.
“To think about how not to make young people homeless should lead to establishing a society where all children and young people can live with peace of mind,” Miyamoto said.