The City Council’s reckless expansion of sit-lie laws targeting the homeless is becoming an impediment to solving Oahu’s festering homelessness crisis.
The Council voted 6-3 to override Mayor Kirk Caldwell’s veto of the latest sit-lie expansion aimed at driving the homeless from the Kapalama Canal, McCully, Aala and Punchbowl, ignoring the city corporation counsel’s warning that it’s too broad and legally indefensible.
The Council irresponsibly refused to even hear an amended bill offered by city attorneys as a compromise to limit legal liability.
If the law is struck down — or even placed under temporary injunction — taxpayers could face hefty court costs and lose the progress made in removing aggressive panhandlers, drunks and other derelicts from Waikiki sidewalks.
The original sit-lie law proposed by Caldwell was limited to Waikiki and narrowly written to address situations in which access to businesses was hindered by people sitting or lying on sidewalks — a measured approach that has survived lawsuits in other cities.
The law came with a promise that the city would move quickly on its Housing First program so homeless displaced from the sidewalks would have somewhere to go.
Instead, transitional housing has languished while the Council has gone on a binge of expanding sit-lie prohibitions in ways that are morally reprehensible and possibly unconstitutional.
The latest expansion follows an earlier one covering Chinatown, Kailua and Kaneohe; several bills providing additional expansion are still alive in Council committee.
What is the Council’s plan as it rolls sit-lie prohibitions through the nine Council districts — to push the homeless into the sea?
On Housing First, the Council voted Wednesday to deny Caldwell the funding he sought for six positions to accelerate transitional housing development on Oahu.
Council members said they didn’t want to grow government, then they grew government by adding two positions to their own staff to monitor homelessness in a transparent attempt to usurp executive authority.
When Caldwell unveiled a promising plan to use shipping containers to build transitional shelter on Sand Island for up to 100 chronic homeless, it was opposed by Kalihi Councilman Joey Manahan in a knee-jerk display of NIMBYism.
The underlying problem seems to be that Council Chairman Ernie Martin wants Caldwell’s job, and the Council’s decision-making is driven by petty political competition rather than a good-faith effort to work in common cause to hammer out a workable way forward on homelessness.
This simply isn’t the issue for political games; Oahu homelessness has become a humanitarian tragedy that is destroying Hawaii’s reputation as a humane place and our brand as a quality tourism destination.
If current Council leadership can’t become part of the solution, then Council members with a conscience — if there are any — need to find five votes to change leadership.
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Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com or blog.volcanicash.net.
