cc wrote:

> > The cheapest rent here I recall offhand, is 38,000 yen for a one room
> > apartment.
> >
> > Beyond reach of your average Osaka homeless
>
> At their reach. If 4 or 6 of them shared such a room, they'd live in much
> better conditions than outside. There is a number of *guesthouses* in Osaka
> where you can get a
> tatami for 10 000 yen/month. A friend lived in such a place for a while. He
> said that was correct, he even had heating/air conditioning (what he
> couldn't afford in the independant flat he took later). He could take
> showers, store 2-3 things in a fridge, cook a little, live a normal life of
> employee/baito/blue collar, so why not trash collector. But you know what it
> is like to have room mates  ! When I was in the gaigin house, I have thought
> a couple of times that I'd be better in a tent in the nearest park.

Isn't it a pity that Fukuyama does not have 10,000 yen per month accommodation,
and no guest houses. And I'm sure real estate agents would be glad to take on
middle aged men of uncertain means and likely no guarantor. I prefer being a
foreigner with a Japanese father-in-law.

> > > That's the logic. How much do you ask for your work ?
> >
> > I take what people pay me or what was advertised or offered. I make no
> demands.
> > I have never demanded money or raises at any of my jobs.
>
> You don't take jobs at 200 yen /ton of recycled newspapers.

I was lucky enough as a child, to get a decent education to be able to do some
kind of work indoors. I don't need to worry like many homeless do, as long as I
keep a few years' salary in the bank and I keep monitoring real estate. My wife
also still has about as much money as when I married her. I knew that would
happen when she said back then she expected us to live off my salary.

I know a single man in his 50s who is out of work after about 30 years as an
accountant in Tokyo. His unemployment ended long ago, and he is just losing
money, as even his two ailing parents' pension is not enough to support
themselves or pay for their care. Were it not for the fact the parents owned a
house, or he makes rent off the little apartment in Kanagawa he used to live
in, they'd probably be homeless, too.

I asked the man what he was going to do. There is nothing he can do but
continue going to computer school and continue looking for a job. Naturally he
keeps getting rejected out of hand explicitly (interviewers will tell him so)
because of his age, because the low salary jobs he tries for are meant for
women, or once he was unable to handle one company's consolidated balance
sheet. He had not known the Fukuyama office was the national headquarters.

I worry about that man. No wife, no kids, to rely upon, a couple of ailing
parents in their 80s, and his former mates of 30 years back in Tokyo.

> > * Over the course of about four days, the city or workers on behalf of the
> city
> > have completely cleared the playground under the train tracks near the
> station,
> > including the old woman on crutches and the man who simply sat in a daze.
> They
> > also painted over all the graffiti. Even the lingering smell of urine is
> no
> > longer proof that five or six homeless actually lived there. I do not know
> > where any of them are now.
>
> Same thing here. Osaka prefecture has "shelters" (that's free from what I
> was told), and they'd want to see all the homeless there, and get the parks
> clean. But...you'd go to such a shelter, you ?

If my family and I were so damned poor, of course I would go to a shelter full
of homeless rather than be outside, if for nothing else than to try to
establish a physical address from which I could seek work.

Fukuyama does not have shelters. When it rains, the government is more
generous, and allows homeless to stay under a roof in the bicycle parking
structure. I saw at least five sleeping there tonight, but I could not
recognize them all covered up, to see if they were the people I knew or not.
Unfortunately, the three or four men who live in the other park behind the
bicycle structure had all their things including futons, in the rain. The man
at the castle is allowed to sleep in a restricted area. Today it appears
someone gave him a home cooked bento, and he was looking much better than
earlier this week.

--
"I want to meet my father and say, your sperm became me."

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