Homeless Evicted

Osaka City Council finally got round to carrying out something that’s been on the cards for a while now, and evicted 9 homeless people from Nagai Park.

Interestingly, the reasons given by the council seem to be more in line other Japanese traditions than the plans to hold the IAAF Athletics Championships in Osaka later this year -

The city said it decided to conduct the removal at Nagai Park in Higashi-Sumiyoshi Ward to build new streetlights and carry out street maintenance construction work, but homeless people argued it was to prepare for world athletic championships to be held at an athletics stadium in the park in August.

For once, I’m going to have to say I believe the council. All across this fine nation in just 2 months, a new fiscal year will blossom forth, and new budgets will be set. These budgets are entirely dependent on how much of the old budgets were spent.

With me so far?

If the council in Fuji city are on a rampage tearing up streets and changing traffic lights, I imagine the activity in Osaka must be easily ten times as frantic.

Which mustn’t be of any comfort to the guys with absolutely nowhere left to go now.

Link to Yahoo News article.

Tuesday, February 6th, 2007 Japan, Japanese News Trackback URL for this entry