Asian cities face pressure to house net cafe homeless and McRefugees

Homeless Makoto Shinbo eats his lunch at his makeshift house at Miyashita park in Tokyo, Japan, February 2017. — Reuters

BANGKOK: Japan is scrambling to house an often overlooked group of homeless people who slept in Internet cafes now shut due to coronavirus lockdowns, with a petition to open the Olympic Village in Tokyo to them garnering support.

At least 4,000 people without secure housing use cyber cafes to sleep, according to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, with 80% of those employed.