REPORT 1 - MARIAN SHINOHARA
The Karakura housing crisis.
It’s been a problem for years, and it continues being a problem. The group affected most by this? Karakura’s large, and ever-growing student population. Of course, the school provides housing for anyone in a sports team, but what about the students outside of these “prestigious” teams? What about the students that don’t have the ability to participate in these highly physically demanding sports?
My name is Marian Shinohara, and I’ve spoken to multiple resilient students - formerly homeless ones, and ones who are still struggling with housing and accommodation. I asked them about their experiences, past or current and about their struggles - especially when it comes to school, and their lives outside of school. These are their stories, I’m just the messenger.
Out of the three students I interviewed, all of them had experienced homelessness at some point in their short lives, one of them still struggling with housing. They detailed experiences of not being able to sleep during the nights, and struggling in school because of it - even skipping out on class due to it!
Karakura is meant to be some sort of a welfare town, we have free healthcare, free education, all of that - yet we still have an extremely high population of homeless people, especially students - the group of people that are the tightest on money due to their studies. It saddens me to see all of my fellow students suffer under these hardships which is why I wanted to spread awareness on this topic.
INTERVIEW 1 - ‘HANAE NAKAZAWA’
TRANSCRIPT:
M: Could you state your name and your grade for the record, please?
H: Of course! I’m Hanae Nakazawa and I’m in college.
M: Have you ever been homeless?
H: I have, until a couple of weeks ago when I moved in with a friend.
M: How did you cope with being homeless? Where did you spend your nights?
H: Well, most of the [time] I didn’t really sleep. I had rough days, other nights I crashed at a friend’s house but I was hanging out with people most of the time.
M: Yikes. You didn’t sleep? That cannot have been healthy.
H: Mhm. It wasn’t really fun and sometimes I had such a lack of sleep I slept through my classes, missing important bits of information.
M: Did your situation affect your education or your school life in any other ways?
H: As I mentioned, I wasn’t really paying attention to my classes a lot, which caused me to re-do a grade. But other than that, not really.
INTERVIEW 2 - ‘OKI HATOMI’
(Some parts
TRANSCRIPT:
M: Could I get your name and your grade, for the record?
O: Yep! I’m Oki Hatomi. Grade-12.
M: Do you currently have a place to stay? A house, an apartment, perhaps?
O: Well, no, I don’t, actually. Normally I don’t even go to my place when I had one.
M: How do you cope with being homeless? Where do you spend your nights?
O: Well, normally, I don’t sleep often. I barely get enough sleep, and I’m often with friends at night.
M: Does your situation affect your education or your school life?
O: Very, sometimes I don’t even go to class at times.
M: It can’t be easy, needing to carry around all of your belongings, either.
O: It’s not, it’s very struggling, but I push through.
INTERVIEW 3 - ‘SOFINA’
TRANSCRIPT:
M: Could I get your name, for the record?
S: Sofina.
M: Do you currently have a place of residence? An apartment, a house, etcetera…
S: Yes! I share an apartment with a friend of mine.
M: Okay… And, have you ever been homeless?
S: Mhm, I was for a while.
M: How did you cope with that? Where did you spend your nights?
S: It was a little hard to deal with at first, but I got used to it. When I did sleep, in the summer I’d occasionally rent one of the beach houses toward the end of the beach. I also slept in the tents sometimes.
M: Can’t have been easy, needing to carry all of your belongings on you and not knowing where you’ll spend the next night.
S: But again, it’s something you get used to over time.
M: Do you believe the housing crisis affects students the most?
S: Most definitely, the majority of other students I meet have nowhere to stay.
There you have it, boys, girls and non-binary folks!
Thanks for reading, and until next time.
- M.S.
P.S. Follow @marian on Onrain
Last edited:
