Homeless settling in, in Iwilei

Add Iwilei to the growing list of Oahu communities seeing an influx of homeless people as the city and state continue to crack down on neighboring encampments.

“It’s my turn,” said Larry Heim, president of the Honblue print technology company on Sumner Street. “But collectively, as a community, it’s all of our problem.”

Honblue has hired part-time employees to hose down the sidewalk in front of its offices every morning to wash away human urine and feces, Heim said.

“We employ approximately 135 people, and our people have to walk down the middle of the street,” he said. “Just yesterday two people defecated on our front doorway. It’s a health-and-safety issue.”

Over the past six months, more than 75 homeless people have moved into Iwilei and set up encampments lashed together out of wooden pallets, plywood and lumber exactly like the reinforced encampments that filled up Kakaako last year.

‘Sit-lie ban’ sought

At one point in August the Kakaako encampment grew to include 293 people, many of whom were forced out of Waikiki, Chinatown and downtown by the city’s “sit-lie ban,” which went into effect in 2014 and prohibits sitting or lying down in financial centers.

Now, as the city and state continue to sweep Kakaako, Heim and others hope to get “sit-lie” applied to Iwilei, even though they know that a ban in Iwilei will likely force the current homeless population into someone else’s neighborhood.

“Of course, I understand it,” Heim said. “I’m living the consequence of sit-lie. Yes, it will become someone else’s problem, and I suspect it’s going to continue to be my problem, as well. That’s one of the issues that our government has to be able to solve. Obviously, there’s no easy solutions.”

Iwilei, home to the state’s largest homeless shelter, has always had its share of homeless people sleeping illegally on sidewalks.

But Philip Richardson, who owns two businesses on Pine Street, said problems have jumped in the past few months.

“Ever since Waikiki got cleaned out and Kakaako got cleaned out, it’s been building,” Richardson said.

He ran down a list of complaints that included “defecation, trespassing, theft, littering, car break-ins.”

The closure of the Kmart across from the Institute for Human Services men’s shelter helped exacerbate the encampments, which are now sprouting up around a construction barrier that encircles the shuttered property.

“The homeless population within this area are pretty hard-core drug users,” said IHS spokesman Kimo Carvalho. “They prey on our clients and have even gotten a couple that were on a great path forward back into addiction.”

Kalihi-Palama Health Center regularly dispatches outreach workers who are seeing new faces in Iwilei, said Leslie Uyehara, director of Kalihi-Palama’s Health Care for the Homeless Project.

“Some of them are transient. They come and go when the sweeps happen,” Uyehara said. “It’s not always the same group of people.”

Scott Morishige, the state’s homeless coordinator, called the new arrivals to Iwilei “a different type of homeless population than you see in other parts of the island. My understanding is that some of the individuals have been homeless for longer periods of time and tend to have more limited financial resources, as well as mental health and substance abuse issues.”

The biggest encampments are located along Iwilei, Sumner and Kuwili streets, said IHS’ Carvalho.

But the most noticeable new one popped up about a month ago on the mauka side of Nimitz Highway in front of the Lowe’s hardware store in direct view of thousands of vehicles that pass by day and night.

Surrounded by the incessant sound of traffic on Nimitz Highway, Darryl Dupre, 57, used wire to create a living space out of pallets, all covered by a tarp. Inside, he lies on carpet remnants.

Dupre acknowledged using Lowe’s bathrooms but insisted that he and his six homeless neighbors packed together on Nimitz Highway cause no trouble for anyone.

“Being homeless isn’t right,” he said. “It’s a struggle for food, water. We don’t have electricity. We don’t have any of those things.”

One of Dupre’s neighbors, who identified herself as Naomi Steamboat, 53, also said she uses Lowe’s facilities.

But mostly, she said, “it’s shishi in a bucket, dump ’em in the street.”

A Lowe’s manager hung up on the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, and the store’s corporate communication office did not respond to emails and phone calls seeking comment.

Morishige said the sidewalk in front of Lowe’s belongs to the state Department of Transportation, while some of the nearby encampments are on city land.

Just like multiple landownership that allowed the Kakaako encampment to grow, Morishige said Iwilei also has “jurisdictional questions that continue to be challenging.”

City spokesman Jesse Broder Van Dyke said a special cleanup crew from the Department of Facility Maintenance regularly enforces the city’s sidewalk nuisance ordinance, or SNO, as well as the stored property ordinance, or SPO, in the area.

Last month the team went out on four consecutive Mondays and cleared Iwilei Road and Kuwili, Pine, Sumner, Pacific, Kaaahi, Kohou and Kaumualii streets, Broder Van Dyke said.

“This is another example of an area where individuals are regularly offered housing and health services but refuse,” Broder Van Dyke wrote in an email. “The SPO/SNO crew occasionally finds hypodermic needles during enforcement actions around Oahu and must exercise caution in removing items.”

The city and state continue to search for ways to work together to address homeless people who have learned how to avoid sweeps by moving to areas that are under either state, city or private ownership.

The city already has a right to enforce its sidewalk nuisance and stored property ordinances on state land on Ala Moana Boulevard directly across from the Kakaako encampment.

Several homeless people living in Kakaako’s Mauka Gateway Park have told the Star-Advertiser that the prohibition by the city against waiting out sweeps on the mauka side of Ala Moana Boulevard has merely forced them to walk less than a mile down to the sidewalks in front of Restaurant Row — only to walk back to a newly cleaned park the next morning.

Discussions are now underway to allow the city to enforce its rules farther down Ala Moana Boulevard and possibly along Nimitz Highway, Morishige said.

Councilman Joey Manahan, who represents Iwilei, met Thursday with Gov. David Ige to discuss issues including homelessness in Iwilei, affordable housing and better cooperation between the state and city when it comes to homelessness.

“There are pockets where encampments are popping up, and they’re getting bigger and bigger,” Manahan said. “At this point in the game, we should have a better handle. Especially for the Iwilei area, we need to be working hand in hand with the state.”

The City Council last year rejected a bill that would have imposed an islandwide sit-lie ban — a rebuke that Manahan supports.

“I don’t know that that (islandwide sit-lie ban) solves anything,” Manahan said. “It just puts us back to the issue at hand.”

But like Honblue’s Heim, Richardson, the Pine Street business owner, also hopes that “sit-lie” can be applied to Iwilei, even though he knows it helped create the problem.

Asked whether he understood the irony and implications of applying sit-lie to Iwilei, Richardson said, “Unfortunately, you find me in somewhat of a selfish position. All we’re saying is, ‘Not in my backyard.’ We need to come up with more positive ways to overcome the challenge.”

In February, Richardson organized a meeting of 14 Iwilei businesses that came armed with plenty of complaints about Iwilei’s growing homeless population. He’s now thinking of organizing a follow-up meeting and hopes to include bigger businesses, Iwilei landowners and elected officials.

In the meantime Richardson remains frustrated. But he’s also sympathetic to the homeless people moving into Iwilei.

“I wouldn’t want the homeless forgotten,” he said. “It’s an issue that needs care and attention. These are human beings.”