The city continued to rid sidewalks of homeless encampments with Thursday’s operations centered on the Iwilei area where 38 notices were issued Wednesday.
City facility maintenance workers spent the morning identifying, tagging and removing tents, suitcases and other items belonging to the homeless people. They had been warned Wednesday that they had to remove their possessions by Thursday or the items would be taken to the Halawa base yard and stored for 30 days. If not claimed, the items will be sold or disposed of.
By noon all that was left were a few empty shopping carts.
A homeless woman said she had been forced to move from encampments in Kakaako and Aala Park.
The woman said she was taking computer classes at a nearby school. She said many of the homeless found the encampment at Iwilei convenient because the nearby Institute for Human Services provides free meals.
The clearing came under a month-old city ordinance that prohibits the use of city sidewalks as a storage area for personal items.
City workers were at Kuwili Street and Iwilei Road where seized items matching photographs taken the previous day were inventoried, put in gray garbage bags, then placed in green garbage bins, which were taken to the base yard. City spokeswoman Louise Kim McCoy said 10 truckloads of items from the Kuwili and Iwilei areas were taken away.
Workers also returned to the Moiliili area where seven notices were issued Wednesday to homeless people still camping near Moiliili Field and three near Old Stadium Park.
During the Jan. 10 operation there were no arrests. City officials issued notices to 25 people at Pawaa In-Ha Park — at King and Kaheka streets — and a total of 19 at Moiliili Field and Old Stadium Park last week.
The first use of the "stored property" ordinance took place on Dec. 30, when the city notified several property owners in Mililani that basketball hoop structures placed on public sidewalks were in violation of the ordinance. All owners promptly removed the structures, the city said.
Based on complaints, several more notices were issued to property owners in the same Mililani subdivision Tuesday, a city official said.
Star-Advertiser reporter Gary T. Kubota contributed to this report.
