Kuchikomi Mar. 02, 2009 - 11:20AM JST ( 12 )

Much has been reported of late concerning the down-and-out “netto nanmin” who seek lodging at cheap net cafes, and the controversial “haken-mura” camp recently set up by laid-off contract workers. But the situation of these unfortunates pales in comparison the marginal existence of indigent day laborers in Osaka’s Nishinari district.

Shukan Shincho (March 5) investigative reporter Akira Hinago returns to the Nishinari district, home to an estimated 21,000 day laborers, who have been bearing the full brunt of the business downturn.

In the past, major riots erupted over job brokers’ excessive demands for kickbacks, and ordinary Osaka residents tend to shun it as a lawless area. With few jobs open in construction these days, many “ossan” as the aging day-workers are referred to in the local dialect, take to peddling used magazines or adult videos and used cameras or appliances on the street.

Men with the means reside in “doya” (flophouses) that charge between 600 to 2,000 yen per night. Those lacking in funds sleep in makeshift cardboard huts when the weather is warmer, but in winter they huddle in a small park.

Eavesdropping on several “ossan” in conversation, Hinago overhears this exchange:

“It’s spring now,” says one. “After our welfare payments arrive, let’s go cherry blossom viewing or visit a hot springs.”

“Dogo (in Matsuyama, Ehime prefecture) would be nice,” his companion replies. “A soak there’s supposed to be good for you.”

It seems that a large proportion of Nishinari’s inhabitants began arriving from the mid-1960s, a period with large infrastructural projects. Now aged 50 or over, they are virtually unemployable, and welfare outlays have soared over the past two decades. As opposed to 910 households receiving welfare payments in 1989, the figure surpassed 3,000 in 2001, and at the end of 2008 recipients had more than doubled to 6,900—roughly one out three of the district’s 25,000 households.

Monthly welfare and medical outlays are estimated at about 4 billion yen. As locally generated tax revenues only come to about 10 billion yen a year, the 38 billion shortfall must be supplied by Osaka prefecture and the national treasury.

Nishinari’s ecosystem also plays host to some 60 yakuza groups, who deal drugs and run small gambling houses called “nomi-ya,” more than 100 of which are said to be in operation.

The syndicates allegedly also earn revenues by preying on the welfare recipients. It seems that a registered domicile is needed to be eligible for welfare payments, so the gangs arrange cheap room and board for the homeless and then squeeze them for 20,000 to 30,000 yen a month.

At 73.1 years (as of 2005), the average male life expectancy in Nishinari Ward is said to be the lowest of all Japan’s municipalities.

“Based on a survey of their actual conditions, average life expectancy is probably closer to late 50s,” an unnamed welfare worker tells the reporter.

Yet even in the squalor of Nishinari, the writer concludes with a touch of irony, a man’s home is his castle.