One of the sorriest times in recent city history was when former Mayor Mufi Hannemann abruptly threw the homeless out of Ala Moana Park during one of our worst rains ever so they wouldn’t blight a festival he planned at the park.
He then proclaimed that homelessness was the state’s problem, notwithstanding that 80 percent of Hawaii’s homeless live in the City and County of Honolulu.
Eight years since that dark day, it’s refreshing to see Mayor Kirk Caldwell take ownership of Oahu’s homelessness problem in a way no previous mayor has.
Caldwell caught flak during his first year for using a new sidewalk nuisance ordinance to scuttle encampments where homeless had pitched tents and stored other property on stretches of city sidewalks.
The in-your-face encampments obstructed the use of public spaces by other citizens and needed to be disrupted.
Caldwell has now come forth with the more compassionate side of his homelessness plan: a Housing First initiative that would spend $18.9 million in the coming year to provide as many as 350 housing units for Oahu’s most chronic homeless if properly leveraged.
The mayor hit a snag when a deal to sell city rental properties fell through, drying up the funds he had earmarked for Housing First, but he is pushing ahead with money from the city’s Affordable Housing Fund.
Housing First, which focuses on getting the most chronically homeless off the streets and then following up with health care and social services, has proved effective elsewhere, and it’s a concern that the plan has received a lukewarm reception from the City Council.
Some members complain there is too much focus on individual homeless over families, which is a fair area for give-and-take as the budget is hashed out.
More troubling are noises from Council chambers repeating the tired old Hannemann line that homelessness is mainly the state’s problem and Caldwell would only duplicate services.
The state, city and private agencies have actually done a decent job of coordinating efforts. Neither the city nor state has yet done much to put the homeless under permanent roof, so there’s nothing to duplicate.
The plain fact is that if we want the homeless off the streets, there has to be somewhere else for them to go. The Caldwell plan is only a start, but a significant one.
We can either pay for the modest living accommodations that Housing First would entail or we can pay much more for the consequences of having so many people living on our streets.
The only real competing idea is an ill-conceived bill in the Legislature to enact a Homeless Bill of Rights, which would effectively make chronic homelessness an entitlement — the last thing we should do.
Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com or blog.volcanicash.net.
