Kana Kawaguchi founded Homedoor when she was 19, five years after spending a day in Kamagasaki district and observing the plight of the homeless there. Photo: ANN/The Japan News
“After coming home, I put my feet under a kotatsu table, but I couldn’t feel the warmth at all. Instead I felt a massive sense of guilt growing inside of me,” Kana Kawaguchi, now 27, recalled in a recent interview. “I blamed myself for being inside the house while those men were still out there suffering.”
The teenager’s visit to the district was triggered by a simple query about a particular area on the way to her school. A schoolmate always avoided using a train station near there, while her mother warned her never to go outside the station.
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