OSAKA—An eviction order was carried out in Osaka’s Kamagasaki district, the largest town for day laborers in Japan, eliciting angry cries of protests and desperate expressions of helplessness.

About 500 government officials and police descended on the area in the morning to remove the homeless people, many of whom were sleeping at the time.

The targeted area was around the Airin general center, which had been a “symbol of Kamagasaki” in Osaka’s Nishinari Ward.

The center was the core of employment measures and support for day laborers, homeless people and others who were down on their luck.

However, the center was closed in 2019 for demolition and rebuilding. Several people have been living on the streets around the center since it was shut down.

The Osaka prefectural government, which owns the land, filed a lawsuit demanding that people living on the center’s premises leave the area.

The homeless people and their representatives lost the case, and the ruling was confirmed in May.

The Osaka District Court also approved the prefectural government’s motion to start the eviction process.

According to officials from the Osaka prefectural and city governments as well as the prefectural police, more than 500 government employees and riot police were involved in executing the order on Dec. 1.

Before 7 a.m., they blocked a road in front of the shuttered center, where more than 10 people usually spend the night.

Officers called out: “We are going to enforce (a court order). Please move.”

An elderly man emerged from his sleeping area, which was covered with cardboard and blue sheets. He was escorted from the space by law enforcement officers.

The area around the closed center was littered with piles of refuse, including illegally dumped appliances, such as refrigerators and washing machines.

Cranes were brought in to move large items, including a huge cauldron and a portable toilet, onto garbage collection trucks.

Government workers handled the smaller stuff.

After the removal of the littered items, the center was surrounded by a fence more than 3 meters high to prevent people from returning to the premises.

Administrative staff approached the homeless people, trying to guide them to a different facility where they could receive counseling and support for their future lives.

But many of them refused to go there.

Members of support groups for homeless people rushed to the site and protested: “Open the road! This is nonsense!”

An elderly man who was asked to leave said: “I can’t think about where I’m going to go yet. It just came out of nowhere.”

He put the empty cans he had collected on a cart and carried them away.

Another man in his 70s said, “They came in suddenly and said, ‘Please leave immediately.’”

He raised his voice and said: “Give me a week’s notice, and I can organize my belongings nicely, but this is too violent. How can they ask me to leave so abruptly?”

A man in his 60s who had been living for about six months inside a bus provided by a support group in front of the center was also asked to leave.

He said he had a premonition of the eviction.

“I’m thinking, ‘It’s finally happening.’ I guess they wanted to remove the garbage by the end of this year because the (Osaka Kansai) Expo is coming up next year.”

He added: “There are more and more foreign tourists here. So I guess it’s just a sign of the times.”

The area has had a history of clashes between day laborers and law enforcement, so local authorities took extensive measures to carry out the latest action.

Between 1961 and 2008, 24 riots occurred in the Kamagasaki district, resulting in many injuries and arrests.

The causes of the clashes varied. Some homeless people were upset at being out of work and took out their frustrations against the government and police, whom they distrusted.

In other cases, the day laborers railed against poor working conditions or the perceived arrogance of the work arrangers.

The Airin general center was jointly built in 1970 by the central government, the Osaka prefectural and city governments, among others.

The purpose of the center was to supervise the open labor market and recruit workers on the streets in response to the “first Nishinari riots” in 1961.

The center had a space called “yoseba,” where day laborers gathered for work assignments, and a hospital facility that provided free and low-cost medical care.

The center has been called a symbol of Kamagasaki in part because it was a place where day laborers interacted with each other.

However, the center was found to have problems with earthquake resistance.

In 2016, a decision was made to temporarily relocate the center’s labor facility, and to ultimately create a new building on the site.

The center was closed in 2019.

But demolition work has not yet begun. And homeless people have continued to sleep in front of the shuttered facilities, bringing blue plastic sheets and futon.

The demolition work and the new building are expected to drastically change the landscape of the Kamagasaki district.