Reply #61: actually, it doesn't. or didn't.

[Hannah Bell]

when i was a teenager in seattle, you rarely saw homeless people sleeping on the streets, or junkies nodding. post-reagan, they suddenly appeared en masse. then i went to live in osaka, a quite big city, where i could walk anywhere in the city at any hour of the day or night without fear, & without seeing anyone sleeping on the streets.

things have changed quite a bit, i hear; & yet, i know what i experienced in three years of living there. i did not see a single person, not in osaka, not in tokyo, not in otsu, not in any city, small or large -- ever -- sleeping on the street.

whereas today i can find homeless camped out within 10 blocks of my house in the small town i live in, which also has beds for over 100 in its various homeless facilities. and an unemployment rate of 15%.