Four new measures aimed at making it harder for the homeless to sit or lie down on Oahu sidewalks moved out of a key Honolulu City Council committee Monday even as a new University of Hawaii study was released suggesting that such legislation has not encouraged people to move into emergency shelters.
The Council Zoning and Planning Committee moved out:
» Bill 44, which would include College Walk Mall and Kili Kalikimaka Mall (between College Walk and Aala Street) in the sit-lie ban.
» Bill 46,which would make it illegal to camp, erect a tent or conduct other activity that "may create a public health and safety hazard" along city-owned streams and stream banks.
» Bill 47, which would add to the sit-lie ordinance "sidewalks on both sides" of streets or sectioned areas where the sit-lie ban applies.
» Bill 48,which would also include adjacent sidewalks as well as sections of downtown, McCully-Moiliili, Aala and Kapalama.
The bills now go to the full Council for the second of three readings.
Less than two weeks ago, the Council voted 6-3 to override Mayor Kirk Caldwell’s veto of Bill 6, expanding the sit-lie ban to new portions of McCully-Moiliili, Aala and Kapalama Canal.
Caldwell vetoed the bill after Corporation Counsel Donna Leong raised strong concerns about whether they would be able to withstand legal challenges. City attorneys have said repeatedly that sit-lie legislation must be accompanied by proof that businesses are being adversely affected by the presence of people sitting or lying on sidewalks.
Several businesses and landowners submitted written testimony in support of the bills.
But about half a dozen people spoke against the measures.
The committee chose to hold Bill 43, which would have incorporated many of the areas included in the original Bill 6.
There was much discussion about a call by several homeless advocacy groups for the city to provide "shallow" subsidies to homeless individuals or families who need a few hundred dollars a month to get back into permanent shelters.
Scott Morishige, project manager of the nonprofit PHOCUSED — Protecting Hawaii’s Ohana, Children, Under-served, Elderly and Disabled — said 1 in 4 homeless households surveyed, and more than half of homeless families, reported that they need only a subsidy to keep them from homelessness.
Households include single people and families.
In the Kapalama Canal area, where there has been an increase in homeless encampments in recent months, 86 percent of people surveyed said they receive some kind of monthly income but do not make enough to pay for housing, Morishige said. Most of those people are working, he said.
Councilman Trevor Ozawa said he’s skeptical about whether a majority of the people who would qualify for shallow subsidies are employed. He challenged Morishige to provide more definitive evidence to prove his point.
Ozawa questioned the rationale of providing shallow subsidies, noting that many individuals and families with homes also struggle to make ends meet financially.
Meanwhile Monday, two UH master’s candidates in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning released a study that shows 21 percent of homeless people in Kapalama, Kakaako and Aala who were surveyed said they were less likely to move into a shelter as a result of being cited by the city for violating sit-lie, stored property and sidewalk nuisance ordinances, while 68 percent said the city’s sweeps did not encourage them to seek emergency shelter.
About 70 homeless people were interviewed in the three areas.
About 86 percent of those surveyed said they had been cited by the city during its sweeps, while 67 percent said they suffered deep psychological impacts due to worrying about possible future sweeps.
Many of those surveyed reported misconduct or misuse of the law by city workers enforcing the sweeps.
