Advocates hope to coax homeless away from H-1
CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARADVERTISER.COM
Outreach workers made contact Friday with 200 or so homeless people living in two encampments under the H-1 viaduct. IHS hopes it is the first of many weekly visits intended to get a good idea of the needs of the people there and connect them with social services.
CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARADVERTISER.COM
Mearilou Bliss, who is homeless, held a flier about IHS.
CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARADVERTISER.COM
Shacks have been built along the edge of the water.
CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARADVERTISER.COM
Trash is piled up near the airport viaduct.
CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARADVERTISER.COM
Councilman Joey Manahan stands under the airport viaduct.
CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARADVERTISER.COM
An IHS employment van parks under the airport viaduct during what they hope is the first of many weekly visits.
CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARADVERTISER.COM
“Pop” sits next to a fence near Keehi Lagoon.
CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARADVERTISER.COM
Bert Arriga talks about his life and being homeless.
CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARADVERTISER.COM
IHS homeless outreach field manager Justin Phillips hands out leaflets to people under the airport viaduct.
CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARADVERTISER.COM
IHS worker Curtis McLean approaches a shack on raised wooden planks under the airport viaduct.
Outreach workers returned to two sprawling homeless encampments around the H-1 airport viaduct and vowed to come back every Friday to try to make a dent in a hardened population of about 200 adults — some couples — who have been living in the area for years.
Curtis McLean, an outreach specialist with the Institute for Human Services, and his boss, Justin Phillips, IHS’ outreach field manager, walked around rusted motorcycle frames, car batteries and packs of feral dogs to encourage the homeless residents to check out IHS’ new mobile employment center that was parked below the incessant sound of cars and trucks whizzing overhead on the H-1.
Phillips looked out over modest but well-built structures, ramshackle homes floating on barges and a series of nets along the water’s edge to catch fish that residents sell for cash.
The ingenuity and detail of some of the construction and engineering impressed Phillips. But it also told him that the people who stretch from the edge of Sand Island Access Road to Lagoon Drive have long adapted to life off the grid, making it even harder for outreach workers to get them to move out of the brush.
“This group has been homeless a long time, and they know how to survive,” Phillips said. “They know how to cook and how to defend themselves.”
A man who called himself “Pop” sat with his shirt open, slumped against a concrete wall behind a pile of belongings.
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Asked his age, Pop told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, “Let’s just say I’m in my 70s.”
Asked how long he’s been homeless, Pop said, “It’s a long story.”
There are two distinct encampments: one along the waters of Keehi Lagoon surrounding the Hawaii All-Star Paintball Games field, and another toward Lagoon Drive. They are divided by a notorious “gaming room” under the airport viaduct that’s known as a gambling site to homeless people as far away as Chinatown, Phillips said.
He estimates that half of the people have work of some kind, mostly “under-the-table jobs” that make it even harder to draw them off the street with the allure of legitimate employment.
“This is your hard-core population, the long-term homeless who have been living out here 10 years, 15 years,” Phillips said.
Piles of garbage, rusted shopping carts, broken surfboards and various machine parts dot the landscape despite graffiti messages asking people to clean up after themselves.
Mearilou Bliss, 43, lives along the waters of Keehi Lagoon and hasn’t worked in 10 years. But she insisted that she’s interested “in a steady job.”
Bliss does not have any of the identification or documents, such as a birth certificate, that she needs to get either work or a home, however. So she said she was interested in learning how IHS case managers can help her get the proper ID.
“It’s time for a change,” she told the Star-Advertiser. “There is a time for everything. I hope everything’s going to be all right.”
McLean had met Bliss before, and he once again encouraged her to sit down with a caseworker to begin the process of getting her birth certificate, Social Security card and other identification that she’ll need to move off the street.
Even though Bliss might not begin filling out the necessary paperwork after Friday’s visit, McLean and Phillips plan to become a regular presence in the encampments to encourage the homeless residents to turn their lives around.
In the meantime, Phillips said, “They’re not going anywhere.”
City Councilman Joey Manahan, who represents the area, made his first visit to the encampments Friday.
“The garbage is unreal,” he said. “We’re not going to be able to get a handle on it anytime soon. It’s bigger than Kakaako.”
Still, there were signs of hope.
Bryce Wykes, 62, lives outside the area in a nearby homeless encampment off Dillingham Boulevard and stopped at the IHS mobile employment van while walking by.
Even though he’s been homeless for 10 years, Wykes said he had been working at a small demolition company on Sand Island until a moped accident two years ago.
Otherwise, Wykes said he was content living on the street. “It’s peaceful, except for the cars and the trucks,” he said. “You get used to it.”
Like untold others, Bert Arriba, 49, lost all his identification during a homeless sweep.
It took him six years to get his Philippine passport and birth certificate back, and he’s now ready to work.
“Hopefully, they’ll help me find a job,” Arriba said while standing outside the employment van. “I’ll take anything, as long as I get a job.”
Meantime, McLean and Phillips will return every Friday to try to make a difference.
Because, Phillips said, he knows “the problem is bigger than what we are.”
27 responses to “Advocates hope to coax homeless away from H-1”
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You coax them using SWAT teams and paddy wagons. Trespassing for 10 years?
Why do we think the city and state can do anything about this? They really don’t care if the homeless stay out of certain money making areas.
Ha ha ha, the picture tells all. A rotten liberal states’ future, where no punishment of cretins or enforcement of the rules is done. There will be tens of thousands of such encampment in time.
Yeah try go to the south, you see even bigger encampments particularly in rural areas. Your “rotten liberal states” comment is so ignorant and naive. You need to get off the rock and turn off the hate radio. Fact is poverty knows no political boundary and is widespread in conservative states as well.
“Allaha” Unless you are a trained and licensed Diagnostician, the noun “cretin” is an inappropriate reference to “THE HOMELESS”. To my knowledge, there is no evidence of “cretinism” in the majority of THE HOMELESS. From your studies, do you have any evidence to the contrary?
Still Lots of homeless in the Reddest conservative state, Utah. Despite the media that says the homeless problem has been solved there, it hasn’t been solved. This is a difficult and sad problem for every state.
Well, I think we are all a little bit homeless in this world.
The only reason any politician cares right now is, it’s an election year. Just wait and see.
Way to go Joey Manahan. You represent the area as a city councilman but this is the first time you visited? Guess you were too busy lining your pockets with brownies to really care.
“Homelessness is a temporary condition that people fall into when they cannot afford to pay for a place to live, or when their current home is unsafe or unstable. Other factors, such as job loss, physical and mental disability, various hardships—including personal, and drug addiction can accelerate people’s slide into poverty, and for some, eventual homelessness, especially in the absence of proper social services. The lack of housing, access to healthcare, and supportive services, then act as others barriers that keep individuals from moving into “homefullnesss”.”
“Homelessness is also a state of vulnerability – to health risks, violence, and harassment by police; heightened exposure to the elements; and the absence of privacy. Homelessness can turn into a more permanent condition when people become alienated from society and/or it becomes increasingly difficult and frustrating to reintegrate into the “mainstream”. However, homelessness is not an inherent quality of trait and it is not linked with any particular identity, nor does it define the people experiencing it. Each individual is unique and must be addressed in that way, and each person is worthy of being treated equally in society and should be given the utmost opportunity to succeed and transition out of a state of homelessness. Homeless people are also not a “population” of their own; they are individuals who have every right to the access afforded to people in society. Thus, it is important that we recognize that the greatest contribution one can make towards ending homelessness is acknowledging someone with a smile or a nod and showing that we recognize them—most importantly, that we recognize them as “HUMAN BEINGS”.”
Excellent comment. The healthiest communities are those where each and every member of that community plays a role in keeping it healthy. Hawaii has replaced “aloha” with “ainokea” and it’s a pathetic indicator of why we’re in the mess we’re in.
..”Hawaii All-Star Paintball Games”.. Are “Paintball Games” a recognized National or International SPORT? Maybe consider using this “field” for the Homeless to set up their TEMPORARY self-made domiciles?
If you’re not from here, homeless, unemployed, and you lose your identification documents (birth certificate, social security card, state ID) you are in a world of hurt. It was extremely difficult when I helped a couple of my clients recover their birth certificates from from American Samoa and Micronesia. Some disaster wiped out a huge chunk of birth records on American Samoa. Foreign documents are also a long recovery process. Proving that they are in the U.S. legally is another expensive ($300+ fee) and several month wait.
Try doing that without an advocate or case worker to help you. Communicating with the birth registries in other American states is difficult but try doing that if you don’t even have a telephone and you need to contact another country.
They can’t get into emergency housing without being able to prove their identity and legal status and they can’t get a payroll job for the same reason. So they’re stuck in cash jobs and homelessness. Its a nightmare and after a while you adapt to living off the grid and under the viaduct or you get arrested for some petty crime and things go downhill fast.
Just add a little bit of mental or physical disability or an addiction problem and the level of hopelessness can be insurmountable.
Just for clarity: the $300+ fee wasn’t for my services. It was required by Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) to get copies of documents proving that my clients legally entered the United States. Without that, if you’re from outside the U.S., you can’t get a social security card or state ID.
Homeless are setting up camps in the woods off Kapaa Quarry Road in Kailua now. They must’ve gotten tired of Honolulu sweeps, and needed to root themselves somewhere less noisy.
They been there a couple years already. As for those under the viaduct, they been there since the late ’80s. 99% of them are losers. You just keep coming back for the same old problems. Are they beyond help? Maybe, semolina be taken care of. But for the most part, these are just a bunch of underachieving losers.
Try and live in a house with that much clutter the City will come down on you. Fine you, cite you and threaten you. Living on the river bank is ok though. What the heck. Why pay taxes?
Sounds like a great location for a trailer park, along with under the H1, Waianae Boat Harbor, etc. Since that’s where they want to live, and we don’t seem to be able to move them, that would make the land available.
A good brush fire might motivate them to move.
Why do they choose to live in plain sight when we are spending millions to provide them with options? They choose to. The more you give the more empowered they become. So, stop giving, enforce tha laws or no one will respect the law.
I agree. We spend so much money on housing options for the homeless yet they choose to live under bridges, on the side of the road, on the side of the freeway, in cemeteries because of the rules which govern these facilities. Many of them are incapable of following rules either due to mental illness or drug use. Sad but you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. Spend the money on families who are really down on their luck and need this help rather than the ones who choose to live in shanties and who destroy our aina with their kukai and opala!
How come I have to pay BWS every time I flush my toilet yet these urban denizens do it off the side of their house boat and pay nothing?
Can they do the same job as the prisoner work furlough programs? If they want to work and earn something, give them a shot at those jobs…unless they like da kine jobs that pay a lot and do very little. Like politicians…hahahaha.
They’d probably be better than the politicians we have now.
Nobody commented about the well known “notorious gaming room” gambling site? Isn’t that illegal? I guess these homeless people have cash to gamble away too? Ok HPD you have a reason to arrest some of these people with charges that will stick. 5-O undercover baby!
I got an idea – enforce the law
Unfortunately, the changes in technology and world events have resulted in accelerated economic imbalances where the homeless problem is, unfortunately, here to stay. Simply put, for a large segment of most State economies, e.g. Hawaii, Washington State, California, New York, there will be a growing imbalance between wages and cost of living and housing.
And how many of those government and business leaders have taken the time to reassess whether their visions for their cities are sustainable? We believe most take the approach that things will always go on like it always has in the past, and no one can say what will happen.
So, just how long and what will it take before we all realize that things will no longer be “like it always has” or “will always work itself out somehow”.
Practically speaking,only realities such as the growing number of homeless, inadequate retirement funds, undesirable divisions in populace, tough challenges to sustain economic growth, that will be a part of daily life, and people will slowly accept that it is no longer “business as usual”.
Why? Living under the highways is perfect shelter.