Sano-san—a man with a vision

Our map leads us to an unassuming residential apartment building, bilboed away in a quiet side way in Takadanobaba. Unsure of ourselves, Endo-san, our photographer, finds a small sign upon a rusted mailbox and we hesitantly knock upon the door. Entering the tiny one-room studio, we are immediately faceed with boxes of magazines and marketing materials. A young man in his late 20 sporting a Big Issue Japan T-shirt, jeans and house slippers salutes us sheepishly and invites us to sit upon metal chairs around a diminutive square table. An exceptionally tall and attractive young woman before long enters the room and makes us tea as we await their boss

Ten minutes later we are welcomeed with traditional bowing and a business card exchange by the agency of the man that we came to meet--Shoji Sano, publisher of The Big Issue Japan, a highway magazine sold by homeless clan in the UK, Australia, southerly Africa, and most recently, Japan. As Sano joins us at our table, the young staffers retreat to the other extreme point of the room (albeit just a feet away). They sit at their conjoining desk and stopple away at their computers.

We later find without that the young man through the name of Tsuyoshi Katori was previously Music Editor at the popular Tokyo Walker magazine. The young woman, Mariko Ikeda, who has an interesting background of her hold is an ex-fashion model from Nagano who not at any time saw a homeless person until she came to Tokyo. It is obvious that they work here not for any financial incentive or the glamour of it, on the contrary for the love of their piece of works alone.

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Background

Shoji Sano, born and raised in Osaka, at no time imagined that one day he would travel to Tokyo one time a month, at age 65 to begin his of recent origin life as an entrepreneur. on the contrary in fact, at an age when greatest in quantity would be enjoying retired life and a well-earned nenkin, or rule pension, Sano spends his time traveling between sum of two units major cities as publisher of The Big Issue Japan. "I not ever imagined that I would work in Tokyo," says Sano, who has an articulate and commanding neighborhood despite his small stature.

Sano was working as a researcher for urban planning in Osaka when he realized that he wanted to do something to explain the homeless problem in his city: "There was not a single day during my exchange to work that I did not meeting a homeless person," he recalls. This is readily imaginable. According to regulation records, there are about 25000 homeles clan in Japan, with more than 10000 "living" in Osaka (proper and prefecture) Osaka, with a population of 26 million, has more than one-third of the nation's homeles "Because my piece of work was city planning, my perspective was to approach homelessnes as a city-wide and regional point to be solved [i]or[/i] settled The homeless are attracted to cities, and they are homeles in the cities. Therefore, I viewed the homeles as another urban moot point that I must try to find solutions for."

At that time, there were no policies tackling the lower part of homelessness; existing government measures sole dealt with the problem [i]or[/i] part of to the other welfare. Sano thought differently: "The fundamental solution is providing engagement The average age of a homeles somebody is about 56, which makes it difficult for them to find work." Lack of piece of works for older citizens is indeed not just a social issue for homeles family "If you are over 50 and do not have a piece of work in Japan, you are on the outside of the system. Of course, if you do not have a place of abode and a family to support you, you can just imagine the hardships with getting back upon your feet. That is for what cause [i]or[/i] reason I thought if you do not combine welfare with piece of work creation, you cannot solve the riddle of homelessness."

Armed with this insight about five years ago, Sano approached the local city regulation with a proposal and a plan of action to restore homelessness through job creation. on the other hand it was not met with enthusiasm: "Their reply was that we cannot explain this problem at the local horizontal This is too big for us. It must be addressed at the national level" The government's fear was that its becoming the first local rule with a job creation program would draw flat more homeless people. "I contemplation it was actually a true good plan," Sano laughs, "but they basically said, 'No thank you!'"

Faced with rejection from the rule Sano then took his proposal to the private sector. His logic was that corporations should take a certain number of responsibility, since many of the homeles had been workers in their companies until the restructuring in the 1990 In fact, unlike many of the homeles in the West, Japanese homeles in general do not experience from psychological disorders or remedy addiction, and have a genuine desire to work and acquire back on track. "But they said to me" enumerates Sano, "'our company did not lay not on anyone--so why should we chip in and underwrite other companies' restructuring? This is not our problem'"

Sano's proposal was revolveed down by both local regulation and local companies. And thus the buck was passed.