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Comment by justsomehnguy | Hacker News Reader

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It may be an under count but probably not by any huge amount. Although there are a much larger number of people that are desperately poor.

Japan has a relatively low cost of living (especially in rural areas), reasonably good social safety net, low drug use, high levels of familial support, and other factors that make it remarkable. It's pretty hard to become homeless.

But even in the US, where all factors are far worse, there is a surprisingly small percentage of the population that is homeless. The absolute numbers are much smaller than most people would guess (even accounting for under counting).

We tend to focus and exaggerate homelessness because it is so visible. Poverty in general is a much bigger and worse problem everywhere.

Also even Tokyo has some extremely cheap housing options. They are not great, but at least roof does not leak too much. They might not have full niceties like big kitchens or showers or even bathrooms. But they are very cheap.

The bottom end is much lower than in west in general.

Doesn’t the birth death ratio in Japan make this easier to solve? Housing is constantly being freed up by deaths, but apparently not conserved by the government or non profit to house those without housing.

They also have massive societal pressure to conform and a ton of 24 hour businesses like internet cafes. It is likely that the definition of homeless being reported here doesn’t capture people who don’t have a stable address but would never come forward to be counted.

We just spent a week in Japan and did not stay only in tourist areas, my Apple Watch logged our walks as around 10-15 miles per day.

Over the entire week, I saw one obviously homeless person, one “maybe” and no encampments. It really was striking coming from the United States. ~3,000 homeless may be low, but they have drastically fewer than us.

The homeless tend to congregate in encampments. You'll sometimes see the rare one in a park or a station but usually you only see them if you happen to wander into an area where they've all set up.

Homeless in Japan don't panhandle or really bother regular people.

Go in late January, Shinjuku station, above Marunouchi line, 20-40 homeless sleeping in the main tunnel under Yasukuni-dori to get out of the cold. Go into the park behind city hall. Look in tbe bushes. See tents made from tarps. Same is true in many other parks. Also that park behind city hall hands out food to homeless people. I'm not saying Japan has lots of homeless people, only that they are there.

My impression from XX years in Japan is there is a strong ethic of "don't bother other people with your problems" so the homeless generally try to keep to themselves.

When were you last in Japan? The tent encampments were cleared out before the 2020 Olympics and have not come back.

I'm there now

Does Japan make a much more substantial investment in institutional mental health care?

No. Mental health in Japan is not broadly talked about. Anyone experiencing a mental health crisis is probably being cared for privately.

Upon what do you base that doubt? Wikipedia cites homeless advocates in Japan contesting the number, claming it's as high as... 5,000. Which is still pretty neat.

On the common sense. And definitions of the term and the methods for obtaining the stats.

Especially if you know anything about Japanese.

The San Franciscan mind simply can't comprehend this

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