Homeless Flock to Internet Cafes

OSAKA--For most people, Internet cafes offer a welcome break from the urban grind and a chance to grab a coffee while checking e-mail messages--perhaps even to nap.

But for a growing number of young people, the coffee-shop-cum-entertainment-centers are not just a home away from home but home itself.

Most are freeters--job-hopping part-timers--who hit hard times and have no permanent place to live. They have found a haven in the cafes, which offer showers and private cubicles at a bargain price.

On a recent evening, a 30-year-old man from Osaka entered one such place in the city's Umeda entertainment district. He signed up for the late-night rate, which allows a five-hour stay for 1,500 yen starting at 10 p.m. The man slipped into one of the private booths, carrying a backpack.

He quickly showered, brushed his teeth and then burrowed under a blanket that comes with the room. He stretched out in a reclining seat as best he could and tried to catnap.

Since he graduated from university, the man has lived apart from his family. During the first five years, he worked about 10 part-time jobs at bookstores and take-out bento shops. But in the fall of 2005, he had a bout of depression and quit work. He couldn't pay his rent for three months and ended up on the streets.

Feeling lost, he was roaming the busy shopping and entertainment area when he spotted a sign that beckoned: "Private rooms, overnight stay possible."

He is now registered with a temp agency and works five days a week handing out giveaway tissues on the street or moving boxes. He gets around 7,000 to 8,000 yen for a day's labor. His meals consist of bread from convenient stores or fast food hamburgers. He has lost about 10 kilograms. He is susceptible to colds, his spine has curved and he suffers from piles.

He hops from cafe to cafe, and when his health worsens, he splurges around 3,000 yen on a capsule hotel so he can at least sleep horizontally for a night.

On days when he has no work, he sits on a park bench or lounges in the lobby of a library. Recently he says he has started to think, "What's the point of my continuing to live?"

But another denizen of the Internet cafes seems to be finding his way back on to his feet--with the help of the Internet.

The 28-year-old from Okayama Prefecture lived out of a cafe in front of JR Kamata Station in Tokyo. In September, he started his own blog that exposed his semi-homeless lifestyle in detail.

The man arrived in Tokyo when he was 24, with dreams of becoming a singer. He found work at a pachinko parlor and waited for his big break. But then he took over the payment of a 1.8-million-yen debt for a friend and ran through his money. He started living out of Internet cafes in January.

He began in Shinjuku, then cafe-hopped along the JR Chuo Line and the Yamanote Line. He stayed at around 200 cafes before finally settling down in Kamata, where he found the cheapest rates. He worked as a day laborer, and his boss gave him 50-percent discount tickets to use in the cafe.

Every night he would see young men and women lining up to get into "his" cafe. He yearned for human contact. "I wanted to speak with other people," he says. "I wanted to be saved from my loneliness."

The blog grew out of that sense of isolation. He sent out cybercafe-related information, together with his daily musings, and slowly developed a readership. Some visitors to his Web site posted encouraging comments, such as "Let's get through this together!"

"(The responses) warmed my heart," he says. "It gave me the gumption to get out of this kind of life."

He managed to save 50,000 yen, and in late October he landed a temp job contract at a factory in Nagano Prefecture. The job comes with housing, but no computer, so he has stopped the blog for the time being.

"Once I get back on my feet I plan to restart my blog," he says. "My new goal is to offer an outlet (to others who are caught up in similar situations)."

Internet cafes that offer multiple services including overnight stays began cropping up around 1999. According to the industry organization that represents them, 1,320 such cafes had registered for business around the nation as of the end of September.

"The rates are better than saunas and capsule hotels," says Hirohiko Kato, 52, who owns a cybercafe chain with 55 outlets nationwide. "And in addition to that, cafes offer special perks such as bottomless soft drinks. Multiple-service cafes have become especially popular in major city areas."

A cafe manager at a large-scale cybercafe with 150 seats in Ikebukuro, Tokyo, says: "We serve about 140 overnight customers a night on average. About 10 percent are regulars we see come in carrying large bags."

There is further indication that Internet-cafe dwelling is spreading. Independent Life Support Center Moyai is a nonprofit organization that offers support to the needy contemplating a new start in life.

Makoto Yuasa, 37, representative of Moyai, says the group started getting e-mails from youths pleading for help around 2004.

Cut off from the rest of society, he says their "existence is rendered invisible in the metropolis."(IHT/Asahi: November 18,2006)