Kyoto Homeless Shelter Under Kamo River Bridge

京都鴨川橋下のホムレス村自転車

Homelessness is not as obvious in Japan as in the United States.

Japanese homeless people do not beg, are not threatening, and tend to be very tidy.

Certain areas of large cities - Airin, in Osaka - have a high concentration of former day laborers who sleep in flop houses.

Still, though run down, these areas do not look or feel significantly different from other, more upscale, areas of urban Japan. (Compared to the US and Europe, Japan has no crime ridden slums.)

The make-shift shelter pictured at right is under a bridge along Kyoto's Kamo River.

Homeless people have stored various necessities - including a couple of old bicycles - under the bridge to keep them dry.

At night, they will return and sleep nearby.

Still, the river is safe and used twenty-four hours a day by the residents of the city.


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Homeless Person Bicycle Kyoto

京都河原町でのホムレスの自転車

Japan has far fewer homeless than the United States.

Those that are homeless often end up in low-rent areas of major cities - Sanya in Tokyo, Kamagasaki in Osaka - where there are cheap boarding houses and job brokers in search of day laborers.

In other places, like Kyoto, the down and out build semi-permanent structures under bridges: blue tarp covering the roof, generator running outside, and shoes lined up neatly in front of a door.

That is what was so surprising about the scene witnessed the other night on Kawaramachi above Sanjo, in central Kyoto.

A large man in many layers of clothing was slumped, asleep, in front of a building. He was filthy, and bags of possessions formed a low protective wall around him.

While a common enough sight in urban America, this was a first for us in Kyoto.

More amazing though was his bicycle, which was parked directly in front of him. He had leaned it against a railing separating the street from the sidewalk. And on and around it piles and piles of bags.

The tires have air, and the chain appears to be in good shape.

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