Unity needed to end chaos in Kakaako

Everyone knows that Hawaii has a homelessness problem, and by now it’s abundantly clear it’s getting worse. There have been measured responses to it — the city’s pilot project moving ahead at Sand Island is one — but so far the scale of the response doesn’t match the demand by several orders of magnitude.

Last week’s assault at the Kakaako encampment — which, according to witnesses, was not the first one — proves how urgently this problem needs solutions, and at multiple levels.

It doesn’t help that Gov. David Ige has been so passive on this issue. So far he has done little to find an alternative location for what has become a de facto "safe zone" along Ilalo and Ohe streets, where hundreds of people now live in tents, some of them hardened into semi-permanent structures.

There is some value to keeping the homeless population gathered where social outreach workers can locate them. But, clearly, that section of Kakaako is not the place.

Government has a duty to define the place that’s appropriate for a temporary encampment, with some provision for sanitation and security. In addition to Kamehameha Schools and other private property owners, there are state agencies — the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, the University of Hawaii and the Hawaii Community Development Authority — controlling land in the area.

All of these forces need to be marshalled in the search for solutions, with the governor sending out a strong, unifying message.

For his part, the mayor has been engaged in piloting the transitional housing approach that will be seen when the Sand Island 4-acre site opens this fall, under a social services contract with the Institute for Human Services, the island’s largest provider of services to the homeless.

Under the $850,000 contract, IHS will operate and manage the site, dubbed Hale Mauliola, for the one-year term of the pilot, serving 87 people at a time, each household staying for only a few months. The idea is to cycle people through the center, providing social services to get people settled more permanently in the community.

This model deserves its full chance at success and if it works well, can be scaled up. But there should be other actions, too.

Not all of the possibilities involve land. Through a separate contract, IHS will offer short-term rental assistance of up to six months to homeless households making the transition into permanent housing. This is aimed at helping at least 50 households get resettled.

This kind of "shallow" grant has been underutilized in the overall homelessness strategy. The homeless population comprises a wide range of needs and circumstances, but it includes families that lack just the small amount of financial support often required when entering a new rental.

Sometimes it’s the deposit or other up-front costs, sometimes it’s a subsidy to tide them over while they get back on their feet, find new jobs and the like.

Financial aid of this kind is one way that entities such as Kamehameha Schools and OHA could help their beneficiaries, some of whom are living on the streets.

The congressional delegation similarly needs to exert its influence to increase targeted aid for Micronesian migrants, another large contingent within the unsheltered population.

This includes benefits lost with changes to the Compact of Free Association that enables them to settle in the United States — disproportionately in Hawaii.

But what can’t be allowed to persist is the current chaotic state of Kakaako. State inaction, primarily, is what’s allowed it to deteriorate to the point where children are being raised on the streets and lawlessness is now in evidence.

State Rep. Tom Brower found that out last week — in response to a plea from the neighboring Children’s Discovery Center, where employees have been tormented by squatters who have defecated and urinated at a museum entrance.

Brower went to the area to document the problems on camera, and he was attacked by campers.

According to at least one eyewitness, it was a "gang-style attack," and one other individual has stepped forward to say he, too, was assaulted in the area last February.

However these attacks are described, they can’t be tolerated.

Neither can the rise of a certain type of defiance exhibited through the posting of various signs at the encampment. One read, "Leave us alone."

Another placard on a fence last week posted a price of $5 a day for an undisclosed service.

Whatever that means, the overarching translation of all this is that this situation is rapidly getting out of hand.

Without a doubt, Oahu’s homeless are suffering at the low end of a social scale in which the lack of truly affordable housing is a crisis compounded by their poverty and various disabilities. They need help.

But the simple truth in this complicated issue is that letting them languish on the streets is not helping them — and ultimately devastates this entire community.