Homeless Numbers: A Sad Comparison Between US and Japan.

[Bonobo]

I just saw a headline in the Asahi news that says that Osaka Prefecture (the city and the surrounding areas) have an estimated homeless population of 4,333 last year. Osaka has the MOST homeless of all Japanese large cities. The next highest was Tokyo with 3,796.

I looked up the numbers for Chicago. 73,656 in 2005~2206.

Wow. Combine that with murder rates, incarceration rates, child mortality rates...

Really gives you a picture.

And Japan's economy has been in the dump for 12 years.

[IowaGirl]

1. This is heartbreaking....

:cry:

[Bonobo]

2. The degree to which they care for each other, the EXPECTATIONS they have...

are SO different then here.

Like politics, relations between consumer and seller and citizen and govt. are also games of EXPECTATIONS.

In Japan they are so much higher. An order of magnitude of difference.

What the Japanese expect and demand in terms of services from the govt. and as consumers is vastly different than here. And the net effect of that reaches into ALL spheres.

No one would ACCEPT any less. Of course this too is slipping, but we're miles apart right now.

[EFerrari]

3. Japan is much better at families than we are, imho. n/t

[Bonobo]

4. They still live 3, even 4 generations in one household (in the country)

Americans were sold this idea of getting out of the house at 18 back in the day. But why?

So we can buy 2 more cars, 1 more refrigerator, 2 more couches, 4 more TVS. etc, etc. etc.

We have lost our extended families, we have lost having our kids benefit from the wisdom of their elders and the parents benefit of having someone to watch the kids.

Our families dissolved and then so did we as a nation. What else could be expected, I guess.

[EFerrari]

8. I come from an extended family and my kids are not involved with me

as I was with my mom and her siblings and their children. We take individuation to a dysfunctional extreme here.

My aunts and uncles lived in their mother's home until they married. And later, my grandmother live with us again. I'll probably wind up in a home!

[Bonobo]

11. It's sad... We have such small families compared to what we used to have in America.

No more cousins, second-cousins, uncles and aunts.

Even brothers and sisters drift away...

[EFerrari]

12. When my children were small and my grandmother still alive,

we'd have four generations for every Sunday at the dinner table. It was so much fun, lol. And as the only Latino family in the neighborhood, we were the only ones that had those big dinners -- and there was always one or more of our Anglo neighbors at the table or on the driveway playing basketball with us.

My counsins and even some of their kids remember those Sundays, they just don't know how to make them happen.

[Bonobo]

13. It's almost like the way video games have meant that kids don't know how to organize

games of baseball or football either.

It is a skill that has been lost.

When I was a kid, you would hop on your bikes, gathering neighborhood kids for a local game. It was easy. After school that's what you did.

[hisownpetard]

5. In Japan, elderly people are revered, not thought of as burdens.

That's a huge cultural difference, right there.

[Bonobo]

10. It is huge. Huge.

In Japan, young kids regularly do things together with old people.

Whereas in so many places in America, what is "cool" is defined as something that your grandparents would never have done.

In Japan, karaoke, cherry-blossoms, and other traditional things are not considered uncool JUST because they are traditional. They play with tradition, change it, but it stays because they don't HATE old people (overstated to make a point)

[SteelPenguin]

6. It's a three pronged assault in this country

Firstly there are the selfish anti-taxers who don't like anyone taking any money 'from them'. They're not opposed to any particular service hypothetically, but they just don't want anything taken out of their paycheck for it. Helping the poor is all well and good. They just can't see past their outstretched hand.

Next are the Calvinist Border Scots sensibilities of those early American settlers. To them, they don't see it as their job to help people who can't help themselves. They're perfectly happy not helping the homeless. They're not opposed to taxation though. They'd just rather those taxes pay for policemen to round up the rabble and keep them away.

Then there are the 'good' libertarians, who actually hate that there are so many homeless, but they've been thoroughly trained to dislike all forms of government. Following this they'd rather not be taxed to pay into what they see as a corrupt system, marred by stories of 'welfare queens' and the like, and would much rather spend their time working at a food bank, even if in truth it's far less efficient and not enough people volunteer and donate on their own to make a meaningful impact.

Three things they don't have in any kind of serious numbers in many other countries. Makes me wonder if these attitudes can be directly traced by the initial immigrants to, and life in, this country (overtaxed english colonials, calvinist borderers, and independent frontiersfolk).

[Lydia Leftcoast]

7. A couple of things I've noticed about the homeless in Japan

is that when they sleep in public (say in subway station passageways), they lay out some newspapers on the floor and take their shoes off, setting them neatly at their feet. No one steals the shoes.

They live in shanties along riverbanks and in parks. I've often wondered about the nearly uniform blue plastic roofs that their shanties have. Did some charity go around handing out roles of blue plastic?

[Bonobo]

9. I never noticed about the blue plastic, Lydia. But certainly the shoes. Always the shoes.

And everything is always folded.

One more thing: They NEVER beg. I have NEVER seen a Japanese homeless person ask for money.

Have you?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

15. I've never seen anyone "spare changing" in Japan

From what I understand, most of the homeless are day laborers, but there are small (really small) welfare payments for the disabled.

The blue plastic was really noticeable when I took a river tour of Osaka. It was in 2000, and I hadn't been back to Japan since 1991, just before their economy really took a dive.

There were always homeless people, even in the 1970s, but most were obviously late-stage alcoholics. (They still slept with their shoes neatly paired, though.)

However, I was shocked at the numbers of shanties along the riverbanks and canals in Osaka. I'd heard that the economy was bad, but that was the first sign I had seen. Each shanty was covered in blue plastic, though, and I've noticed that in Tokyo, too.

[spinbaby]

14. At least they're allowed to build shanties

Here, the homeless aren't allowed to build a place of their own.