To walk around the rooms of Iolani Palace, you are asked to put booties over your shoes to protect the 135-year-old floor. You are led by a docent and watched, carefully though not unkindly, by guards who are there to make sure nobody gets handsy with the historic collection. Access is controlled. There are limited numbers on each tour, and it’s best to make a reservation. The palace is precious not simply for the value of the items inside, but for their deep meaning.
However, should you get the urge to do some damage, you can go right up there during off-hours and smash a pane of glass original to the structure. Just take a big swing at it and watch history break into a thousand shiny shards.
Of course, you wouldn’t, though. Who would?
Well, two people did.
Can we get real about what’s going on?
During the day the Iolani Palace grounds are a favorite hangout for homeless people. These are not the homeless families with sad-eyed, pitiful children who fell victim to the economy, felled by job loss or the high cost of living or the near-impossibility of renting a low-cost place in Hawaii.
They are the hard-core homeless, the ones who look like the living dead, the scary ones who make even big, strong men tell their kids, “Let’s go. Get in the car and lock the doors.”
Homeless people roll up to the palace with their filthy collections, unroll their filthy bedrolls and sleep on the grounds with impunity. On any given day you can walk the lawn that Kalakaua and Kapiolani walked and have to sidestep trash and food waste and human feces.
Some of the homeless are quite obviously mentally ill or under the influence of illegal substances or both. They scream in anguish and yell at people who are just walking on the sidewalk during their workday lunch hour.
The grounds are closed at night, and the homeless are ushered out, but twice in the past three years, people have managed to get back inside the fence and break palace windows. What if someone decides setting a fire is more fun?
While nighttime security measures don’t seem to be working, the palace area isn’t treated with respect during the day, either.
It’s one thing to give up swaths of public parks and beachside bushes to homeless camps, to see tents along the freeway and piles of garbage under bridges and to walk downtown having to hold your nose against the stench of urine. But if we can’t keep Iolani Palace from turning into a crime-ridden, smashed-window, trash-strewn homeless hangout, we’ve really given up trying.
Maybe the state can’t afford to take care of the problem and one of the alii trusts should step in. Maybe a volunteer group of hard-ass kupuna can form a new palace guard. It’s crazy that this happened again. It’s crazy that it’s happening at all.
Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.
