Ige edges toward doing something about homeless

From taking away the bus stop benches, to putting planters on the sidewalks, to even passing ordinances and regulations to flush the homeless out of beaches and parks, government continues to lose ground.

The latest surveys taken across Hawaii put the number of people sleeping on the street at 7,620.

The city and state have appropriated millions in public money, but the human catastrophe continues to grow.

The situation is an emergency and Gov. David Ige has twice declared it such and signed declarations to spend new money and enact new rules.

Ige and his homelessness coordinator, Scott Morishige, in public meetings are pushing a new approach to the problem: data.

“There is no silver bullet, although we are seeing some early successes,” Morishige said at a Kaneohe community meeting earlier this week.

The state is collecting demographic information on the homeless “so we can better target our services,” he said.

“We discovered that developing data was vital,” Morishige reported, adding that the issue is one of extreme poverty.

“This is less than $300 a month for a single person and for a household of four it was $500 a month,” he added.

Knowing there is a problem and solving it, however, are not the same.

Ige reported this week that although the state and city removed the appalling homeless camp in Kakaako, the people simply moved.

“Service providers say 130 homeless individuals have relocated. … An estimated 90 individuals are now at Kakaako Waterfront Park and an estimated 40 individuals are now at Kewalo Basin Park,” Ige’s office said in a press release announcing the new emergency rules that will start new eviction sweeps next month.

“The supplemental proclamation supports a coordinated response that includes continued education of the homeless population regarding the availability of services and compassionate relocation efforts,” Ige’s release said.

At the Kaneohe meeting, Ige said the state is looking at state land across Oahu that would be suitable for some unspecified housing project to help the homeless; there was no indication that the state was in a rush.

“We are trying to disperse the homeless so we don’t have huge encampments and also looking to establish a range of services,” Ige said.

The oldest social service agency dealing with homelessness, The Institute for Human Services, provides shelter for single men and single women and families. It reports serving 5,000 homeless people every year. Every year the IHS’s job gets bigger and more daunting.

It is not just for beds out of the rain — it is case management, employment training specific enough to give one clothes and shoes for a job interview, and health screening.

Ige and the state are slowly edging into the problem that the social service agencies deal with on a daily basis: Hawaii’s poverty.

The problem is not one of intentions; no one is at fault. The problem is dedication to resolving the issue. The state is just swatting at the symptoms.

The difference is like a doctor telling you to stop smoking, get more exercise and skip the hot dogs for lunch, compared with an EMS team doing chest compressions and slapping on a defibrillator.

Hawaii can’t deal with the thousands living on the streets until it has places, besides the other side of the park, for them to go.

Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.