Last week I posted a video on homelessness in Japan. Part two just came out. In this video, Professor Tom Gill, a social anthropology professor at Meiji Gakuin University, who has lived in Japan for 25 years, describes the homeless population in Japan. They are overwhelmingly male, poorly educated, and grew up in rural areas. They came to Tokyo and other urban centers to work as day laborers during the bubble economy in the 1980s. When they can afford it, they live in cheap, pay-by-the-night rooms caled doya (ドヤ, which is a play on a Japanese word for inn, yado, ヤド). About 20% have a criminal record, which makes it hard to find work. Former yakuza (Japanese mafia) members have an especially hard time getting hired because it's easy to spot their missing finger joints and tattoos.
In recent years, Japan has stepped up efforts to assist the homeless, but as one program director explains, a lot of the homeless people don't think they are worthy of assistance so they don't seek it.
This video is from "Life Where I'm From," a Patreon-supported effort to create documentary videos about Japan and the World.
