Democratic Party needs to return to wisdom, compassion

There is a warning on the horizon: It is not blaring from iPhones. North Korea is not involved.

The signs can be seen throughout Honolulu: in the open urination by homeless people on Bishop Street due to lack of public restrooms. Passersby turn their heads to look away. So unfortunately, do our political leaders.

They don’t care to see the dangers: in the pitiful black plastic bags and shopping carts full of belongings that follow the homeless as they are forcefully moved from one site to another without access to restrooms. Nor do they seem to respond in any meaningful way to problems of people unwilling to take hot showers because they can’t afford to as the high cost of electricity falls now falls mostly upon the poor.

Nor is there much awareness that in such dirty, overcrowded conditions, a virus can spread like wildfire. This happened last year in San Diego, where unsanitary conditions from homeless people caused an outbreak of Hepatitis A that spread to 578 people and caused at least 20 deaths.

There was a time not along ago when the men and women who were Hawaii’s business, political and religious leaders would never have accepted such a decline in our basic living standards. Many of them were Democrats with memories of the viral conditions in 1918 that set off a Spanish flu epidemic that cost the lives of thousands of people here.

Some months ago I asked a young Hawaii Democratic representative about the income inequality problems affecting renters and the working poor in Hawaii. The generous state and federal tax credits for photovoltaic solar systems work best for homeowners. The result is that the poor in Hawaii now subsidize energy savings for the rich and — and as a consequence, a public health hazard has been created.

“Maybe you could talk to the consumer advocate,” the representative said helpfully. The problems of the poor, he implied, were not his main area of focus. He was busy with climate change.

The new generation of Democrats do not deny the problems of poverty in Hawaii exist; they are just not a priority like climate change, bike lanes or battling the immigration pronouncements of the Trump administration. Admittedly dealing with problems of public restrooms or homelessness can be a tiresome frustrating effort with few political rewards.

This is too bad because there are readily available solutions in cities like Cambridge, Mass., which have made street-side public restrooms a priority. The problem of electricity for the poor could be helped with on-bill repayment of solar hot water systems, which could cut their electrical bills by as much as 40 percent if they live in houses.

There once were Democrats like Patsy Mink and Govs. George Ariyoshi and Ben Cayetano who drew red lines when it came to protecting the poor and vulnerable. To them it was not just a problem of social justice, it was good sense because lack of sanitation creates dangerous health conditions on islands where people live close together and tourism is an important part of the economy. We need that kind of wisdom and those kinds of Democrats again.

Michael Markrich, owner of Markrich Research, is an independent writer/researcher with an interest in renewable energy.