Former yakuza office repurposed to become elderly care facility

A building that used to be one of the main offices of the Kudokai crime syndicate in the city of Kitakyushu is now being used as a welfare facility for the elderly.

The driving force behind the abolition of the office in 2011 was a local citizens’ campaign to eradicate the Kudokai, a specified dangerous crime syndicate known for its violent acts. The move later led to a public-private collaboration to crack down on the syndicate in the Kokuraminami ward of Kitakyushu.

The building — once the second most important base for the Kudokai after its headquarters, also located in Kitakyushu — now houses a day care center for the elderly called Violin.

Having not been renovated, the facility retains the original look and features of the Kudokai office — a thick front door with a steel plate in its center, a glittering chandelier hanging from the ceiling and a marble floor.

“You can see some of the lights are off,” facility manager Koichi Nomiyama said, gesturing to the chandelier. Replacing its light bulbs is no easy task, he added.

The building also has a bathtub that is too deep for elderly visitors and excessively soft sofas that might not be suited for them.

“It was definitely not designed as a welfare facility, but we've gotten used to it,” Nomiyama said with a laugh.

In the center of the room where the chandelier is, treadmills have been set up to allow the elderly members to work out.

A woman who was making origami decorations in the building was unperturbed by the fact that it used to be a yakuza office.

“Everyone talks about how gorgeous this place is,” she said.

A large Japanese-style room with 30 tatami mats and an indoor garden is used as a storage for items such as adult diapers.

The building stands on a 3,000-square-meter site that also houses a nursing home for the elderly, which has more than 100 residents.

It was in March 2010 when a Kudokai signboard first went up on the building, which sits across the street from a kindergarten and is about 200 meters away from an elementary school.

Residents began to feel a sense of crisis when a man who appeared to be a Kudokai member teased children outside the office on the street that leads to the school.

A week after the Kudokai signboard was put up, some 500 local residents, led by a senior member of a neighborhood association, held a rally and marched toward the office, chanting, “Get out.”

Three days later, bullets were fired at the home of the head of the federation of Kokuraminami neighborhood associations. Senior Kudokai members were later convicted of attempted murder over the incident.

The syndicate also harassed the family of the man who led the initial rally. Graffiti that read “you all will die,” was painted on the back door of his house, while a black car apparently driven by a Kudokai member constantly tailed his wife.

“I didn't feel scared at all,” the man who led the rally, who is now 77, said when recalling those events.

He took early retirement from a major company when he was in his 50s, against his family's wishes, in order to concentrate on serving the local community. “I guess it's like a sense of mission to protect the community and the children,” he said, explaining his love for his hometown.

Three days after the shooting incident, the man led another rally to drive away the syndicate.

He held a number of rallies and marches after that, and during each, his team offered rice balls and rolled omelets to police officers who stood watch over the gangs around the clock. He also made repeated requests to the city to improve the police officers’ working conditions, which led to a rest station being set up for them.

The residents' unwavering efforts eventually bore fruit. In February 2011, the Kudokai office was sold to a medical corporation, which turned it into the welfare facility in 2013.

The following year, the Fukuoka Prefectural Police began a full-fledged campaign to crack down on the Kudokai.

A former prefectural policeman, who was a senior officer at the Kokuraminami Police Station at the time, said, “That citizens’ movement was the starting point of the public-private operations to eradicate” the Kudokai.

In early September, 10 years after the start of the police crackdown, the man who led the community movement stood at a crossing near the welfare facility, saying “good morning” to children on their way to school.

Every morning after 7 a.m., he drives slowly around the school district for 30 minutes in his car, which has been turned into a patrol vehicle with a blue rotary beacon light. His purpose for doing so is to get drivers to slow down to prevent traffic accidents while children are walking to school.

The man has also become a volunteer probation officer to help former gang members’ rehabilitation and reintegration into society. On one occasion, a former gang member tried to intimidate him by showing off the tattoos all over his body, but the man simply yelled at him to put his clothes back on. He later held repeated meetings with the former gang member to help him rebuild his life as a member of society.

The man said he will never forget the time when the former gang member succeeded in securing a job and turned up to show him his employee identification card.

“The community and the people can change,” the man said as he cast his eye across the town that rid itself of the Kudokai's presence.