OLYMPIC SPIRIT?

Tokyo Moves on Homeless in Time for Games

Hundreds of homeless people given eviction orders to clear the streets before the Games begin.

Hundreds of homeless people living on the streets of Tokyo have been ordered to pack up their belongings and move on before the 2020 Olympics begins—even if they have nowhere else to go. As the city prepared to host the least popular Olympic Games in history, Asahi Shimbun reported that authorities were in the “final phase” of an operation to clear homeless people from the city center. Among them: a 62-year-old man who had been living near the main metropolitan government office—one of the final stops on the torch relay—who was handed a note two weeks ago telling him to remove his belongings by July 21 because they were “creating obstacles for road management” before a planned Olympic event. “The note not only increased the dejection of the homeless man, but it also deflated his once-elevated Olympic spirit,” the newspaper reported.

Tokyo authorities have done their best to deter homeless people from living in the city’s parks, streets, and railroad stations since the city was awarded the Games in 2013. A survey this year found that there were still 862 people living rough in the Japanese capital, many of them elderly.