Sand Island good option for short run

The idea of providing some short-term accommodation for Oahu’s homeless on state land at Sand Island deserves support, under very strict conditions.

There must be enough security, sanitation and transportation to make it a workable stop-gap solution for many of those now living on the streets in Waikiki and other communities.

It must not delay or undercut the advance of a true Housing First program, one that puts the most vulnerable in stable, permanent housing with services to improve their circumstances.

As a temporary program, it must be run with enough oversight and controls to manage the impact on neighboring businesses and other activities.

Above all, it can’t be seen as a substitute for a more comprehensive overhaul and expansion of Oahu’s permanent housing options. It’s long past time for some out-of-the box thinking.

Alternatives could range from adaptive housing created from recycled containers and other prefabricated units, to trailer parks, a mode of housing barred for decades, whose time may have come.

First, however, is the Sand Island proposal. Pressure has been building to create a temporary shelter as an alternative to life on the Waikiki streets. The City Council this week is weighing final approval of bills to ban occupation of sidewalks and to crack down on public urination and defecation.

Enforcing those laws is needed to clear encampments from Waikiki, the core of Honolulu’s visitor accommodations and crucial to the tourism economy. The most constitutionally defensible of the so-called "sit-lie" proposals would limit the restriction to Waikiki: Courts have rejected such laws that are applied too broadly.

Even so, some fallback plan needs to be in place as soon as possible to enable reasonable and effective enforcement. People will resist relocating all the more if they are not given anywhere to go, and there should be an option for police to offer someone occupying a sidewalk other than arrest.

The 4.8-acre parcel under consideration is just over the Sand Island bridge, near the road and on land assigned to the state Department of Transportation but not in use. On Friday the state Board of Land and Natural Resources will hear the proposal by the city, which seeks free use of the land for a maximum of three years.

This seems an acceptable location that should not interfere with the general public use of the Sand Island State Park itself.

This park has served the Kalihi and West Honolulu neighborhoods for years, and families who reside there deserve to have their access to shoreline recreation.

Mayor Kirk Caldwell’s administration insists that it is not turning the area into a freewheeling "safe zone" encampment — an out-of-sight, out-of-mind "tent city" that is just a step up from the impromptu sites that have sprung up around Oahu.

Even on a temporary basis, the Sand Island installation needs enough bath- rooms and utilities to make it reasonably livable, and access to public transportation to make it practical for the unsheltered who have jobs and other errands to manage.

It needs dedicated police patrols to ensure the security not only of the shelter residents themselves but of the adjoining properties.

The Council and the administration have sparred over the right way to attack the homelessness issue. Political rivalries, particularly between Caldwell and Council Chairman Ernie Martin, have played out. But there are scattered building blocks across state and county governments for a comprehensive policy, and that is where the attention should go.

There are some advances being made here, said Colin Kippen, the state’s homelessness coordinator, citing in particular the work of the Hale O Malama initiative. This is a project uniting various service agencies to get better information about the social, medical and economic needs of the homeless population and a more coordinated outreach.

That’s good, but work is needed to expand access to actual lower-cost housing options. Financing authorized by the Council for new construction and renovation of small, boarding-house type of units should accelerate progress in this direction, and existing properties under government control should be examined for repurposing as housing.

Further, the Council should look at ways to allow alternative modes of construction, including prefabricated units and trailers or recreational vehicles, some of them strategies that don’t fit under current building codes and land-use rules.

A lot of the focus during recent debates over the homelessness issue has been placed on the punitive aspect of the "sit-lie" bills, but the fact is that the streets aren’t safe or appropriate living spaces, and setting up camp there must be actively discouraged. That approach, however, must be paired with creative options for sheltering the homeless in a stable setting.

A temporary shelter at Sand Island is an intermediate step to start movement toward a more permanent set of solutions. The real worry is that it becomes the permanent solution itself.