Use Hilo Hattie site to shelter homeless

The city has relocated more than 300 homeless people into my district without ensuring there is sufficient shelter or housing.

The City Council provided more than $60 million toward housing solutions. The mayor has only prioritized one new transitional shelter for the entire urban core on Sand Island, which is still under construction for only 100 individuals and no families. The result is the homeless explosion along Kapalama Canal and other areas of the district, which is now bearing a disproportionate burden.

With minimal work, the 83,000-square-foot Hilo Hattie site could accommodate hundreds of homeless families and children immediately from both Kapalama Canal and Kakaako. The diversity of services that could be housed on-site, including hygiene centers and healthcare facilities, would be incentive enough for our highest-priority homeless families to willingly seek services, as opposed to installing fences to force them into shelters through the enforcement of stored property ordinance.

Joey Manahan
Honolulu City Councilmember

Homeless deserve due process, too

It’s one thing to take and destroy junk and garbage from the homeless (“Sweep stakes high,” Star-Advertiser, Sept. 17). It’s quite another to take food from children.

Likewise, by whose authority can the police confiscate and destroy ID cards issued by the federal government? They take food, drugs and ID cards from homeless without legal authority. Everyone has the right to due process, or is that expecting too much here in Hawaii?

James l. Robinson
Aiea

Let people live in tents, if they want to

You have to wonder (yet applaud) why it takes the Honolulu Star-Advertiser to demonstrate to our city smarter ways to deal with the homeless problem (“Seattle takes various different tacks to address homelessness problem,” Star-Advertiser, Sept. 18).

Tent cities would work. It’s not the best solution, but if people want to live in tents, then give them an area with restroom facilities. They are off the streets, with better sanitation for our island, and can live there until housing is available.

If they don’t accept housing, then they still have a place to live off the streets.

Also, they need ID — so many homeless people are living here without any ID.

Refugees and homeless people worldwide live in tent cities. Hawaii is nicer to live in tents than Seattle.

Clifton T. Johnson
Waikiki

Korean War had no winners or losers

What planet does this guy live on (“Obama has been poor war president,” Star-Advertiser, Letters, Sept. 17)?

The Korean War was a cold war with no winners or losers. In fact, the standoff still goes on.

Halliburton, the company associated with Vice President Dick Cheney, profited from war and military contracts.

Mary Jo Morrow
Kailua

Rail could reduce spending on cars

Let me put the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation’s new cost shortfall in proper perspective.

Recent studies show the average annual cost of owning a car is slightly under $9,000.

Rail transit could potentially serve between 400,000 to 900,000 people, which translates to probably between 100,000 to 300,000 households.

The annual household cost of motor vehicles for Honolulu and Oahu may therefore total $900 million to $2.7 billion.

Multiply the annual cost of owning cars in the service area — $900 million to $2.7 billion — by a minimum 50-year life cycle for HART.

A conservative car ownership cost of $50 billion over 50 years for Oahu households is still many, many multiples of HART’s cost over the same period, even with HART’s new cost figures.

Over time, a rail transit system will reshape the urban and suburban landscapes, making displacement of car trips by rail trips more common.

Mathews Hollinshead
St. Paul, Minn.

LoPresti out front on hot-schools issue

As an Ewa resident and member of the neighborhood board, I commend state Rep. Matt LoPresti in his efforts to cool public schools by calling for fan and air conditioner donations.

He, along with other community members, brought an awareness to the critical situation that the state Department of Education now calls an emergency.

Long before there was any publicity about unbearably hot schools in Ewa, LoPresti quietly but effectively worked in the Legislature earlier this year to secure more than $7 million for air conditioning for Ewa and Ewa Beach Elementary, Kaimiloa Elementary and Ilima Intermediate.

I urge the governor to release these funds as well as divert the $20 million asked for by the DOE to be used for air conditioning the hottest schools on our island.

Sam Puletasi
Member, Ewa Neighborhood Board

City official taking blame impressive

The giant sewage spill at Atkinson Drive and Ala Moana late last month was obviously horrible and epic, but I found city Environmental Services director Lori Kahikina’s honesty and forthrightness in coming forward to take blame and apologize right up front to be radically refreshing.

Since when do city (or county, or state, or federal) leaders ever take full, immediate accountability for something?

It’s yet to say what the final fallout of this debacle will be, but in any case I think Kahikina should be applauded for her candor and willingness to “do the right thing.”

Karin Lynn
Moiliili