Japan tries to tackle health problems of aging homeless

Public and private efforts are gathering pace to address the increase in the number of elderly homeless Japanese. A nationwide survey by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry found 5,534 people living on the streets or riverbanks as of January 2017, with many of them in urban areas such as central Tokyo’s 23 wards and the city of Osaka. Their average age was 61.5 as of October 2016, a rise of around two years from five years earlier, the ministry said. The advancing age of homeless people has made health problems among them more noticeable.