YOYOGI PARK

We first encountered the sophisticated structures built by Japan’s UNHOUSED independently in Kyoto and Osaka at different points in 2000, years before our collaboration began. At the time, we were both struck not only by the architecture of these structures, but also by their presence in these major Japanese cities; they were visible yet obscured, an unacknowledged but undeniable reality befalling mainly underemployed laborers and their families in Japanese metropolitan areas.

The fastidious structures of Japan’s UNHOUSED occupy riverbanks and public parks in cities across Japan, with the largest concentrations in Osaka, Tokyo, and Kyoto. It is also common to see people sleeping on the streets. These structures have become the subject of artists’ books, projects and tourist photos, yet the core issues impacting their existence are still not widely discussed in Japanese society.

Among Japan’s UNHOUSED are also people who have chosen not to pursue the “society life” of slaving away at a salaried job, as is the case with one of the people we met in Tokyo’s Yoyogi Park during a visit in summer 2006. The report below is from that visit, where we learned of the particularities facing Yoyogi’s squatter encampments with the help of Japanese housing and homelessness scholar Aya Miyoshi.


Two years ago there were approximately 350 people living in encampments in Tokyo’s Yoyogi Park, a large recreational green space on the edge of the Harajuku shopping district. Dwellings like the ones pictured here are quite typical throughout Japanese cities. They have proliferated during Japan’s long recession. We have documented similar structures in Osaka and Kyoto.


Over the years, the residents of Yoyogi Park developed what one resident described as, “a really good neighborhood” cooking communal meals, planting small gardens, and gathering for activities like weekly drawing classes.


Two years ago, the municipal government began a campaign – most likely related to Tokyo’s bid to host the 2016 Olympic Games – to clear out the encampments in five of Tokyo’s parks and move people into rent-assisted apartments. Yoyogi is one of these parks. Some of the formerly “homeless” men who have taken the apartments now work in the park clearing away other people’s dwellings.


The municipal government has become increasingly aggressive about clearing out the dwellings. Recently they began putting up ropes and signs that say “building dwellings is forbidden” wherever they clear out an encampment. They also plant trees and pile up mounds of dirt to make it difficult for people to put up new structures.


Walking through these areas with ropes and signs, dirt piles and small shrubs it feels a bit like a graveyard. You get the strong sense that people used to live here. Some people still do. Their homes are scattered around, but there are many more ropes than dwellings.


Only 60 people still have semi-permanent dwellings in the park. Some didn’t want to move to apartments. Others couldn’t afford it. Residents said that the government’s next campaign is to concentrate all the dwellings in one area. No one is quite sure what will happen now that the apartment program is closed and the governor has announced plans to build a 100,000-seat stadium in the park for the 2016 Summer Games. The drawing classes continue on Tuesday afternoons.