The Comic Plaza internet café never closes, but it is not until the late evening that the regulars begin to occupy its tiny, neon-lit cubicles. They are men, mostly; slightly grubby looking, and carrying small rucksacks. They take full advantage of the free coffee and soft drinks included in the all-night charge of 980 yen (£4.20).

They have no interest in the world wide web – to many of them the Comic Plaza is the only home they have. They are the internet café “refugees”, Japan’s new social headache, and the object of growing concern among politicians and bureaucrats.

The Japanese Government announced yesterday the results of a survey on this new class of homeless people: at least 5,400, it concluded, live out their lives in the tiny cubicles of 24-hour coffee shops and “comic cafés”. Tens of thousands more live in them for part or most of the month – and these are only the ones who owned up to their status. The fear is that they represent a generation without qualifications, professional experience or permanent accommodation, and no realistic prospect of acquiring them.

The appearance of large numbers of homeless people, living in cardboard shelters in parks, on streets and on river banks, was one of the features of the 1990s – Japan’s so-called “lost decade” – when economic recession brought large-scale redundancies and bankruptcies for the first time in its postwar history. Now the economic recovery is creating income disparities between a growing class of newly wealthy people and an underclass of “losers” – not victims of outright destitution, but disqualified by low income from settling into permanent accommodation.

Among them is Koichi Ishizawa, a cheerful 52-year-old who fell through the cracks in society 25 years ago and has never managed to crawl back up. He lost his factory job in his 20s; ever since, he has worked as a day labourer, paid a maximum of Y9,000 a day as an unskilled construction worker. For the 20 days a month that he succeeds in finding work, he stays in the company dormitory. The rest of the time, he attempts to sleep in an uncomfortable chair in the Comic Plaza.

“I hate it here, it’s so uncomfortable,” he says. “But it’s cheap, and the drinks are free so it is the best place for me. The best I can earn is Y180,000 a month, and by the time I’ve paid for this place, and food and cigarettes, there isn’t enough for an apartment.”

The other refugees at the Comic Plaza include a part-time worker in a convenience store, and Mayumi, a 42-year-old woman who makes Y90,000 a month talking dirty for a telephone sex service.

It is not the monthly rents that are prohibitive, so much as the advance payments, including several months’ deposit and “key money” (a non-returnable gift to the landlord), that tenants in Japan are required to put down. Landlords also require a guarantor who promises to pay the rent if a tenant defaults. Many lower-income people have no such friend on whom they can rely.

Twenty-four-hour establishments, including allnight “family” restaurants and fast-food outlets, have always attracted the homeless, especially during the coldest and hottest months. Internet cafés, often combined with manga (comic) lounges, started to become popular in Japan about five years ago, and at night they are dominated increasingly by people with nowhere else to go.

According to Makoto Yuasa, of the charity Moyai Support Centre for Independent Life, the refugees are victims of the weakening of the economic strength of two Japanese institutions – the family and the company.

Traditionally, people lived at home until they married, and were supported through full-time work after that. Fewer parents can now afford to support grown-up children, and companies rely increasingly on part-time, casual and contract workers.

Mr Yuasa’s organisation helps people to negotiate the complicated procedure of claiming social security entitlements, and acts as a guarantor to help to secure apartments. “When people speak of poverty, they generally mean economic poverty,” Mr Yuasa says. “But there is also such a thing as poverty in human relations.”

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