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+--- Thread: More on Homeless Native Hawaiians (/showthread.php?tid=18396)
More on Homeless Native Hawaiians - MarkD - 05-18-2017
Several days ago Honolulu media reported the rousting of 40 homeless campers living in the brush behind Plantation Village in Waipahu. It was revealed that--once again--the campers are disproportionately part-native Hawaiian.
Another article on the hundreds of homeless on Oahu’s Waianae coast reported that “a large number of them are native Hawaiians, and they don't want to go anywhere.”
This refers to them not wanting to leave their campsites. But it can also relate to a far more important topic: Given the increasingly high rents on Oahu (part of gentrification), will the natural outcome of poor people being shifted to other places repeat itself in Hawaii?
In the San Francisco Bay Area, one of just many examples, most poor minority people were pushed out of the city some 25 years ago to Oakland, across the bay. That city, once synonymous with “low income,” is now gentrifying. The displaced are going further east, some to agricultural cities like Fresno. Others relocate to the giant arc in our country from Mississippi north, where living is relatively cheap.
A significant number of mainlanders who come to Hawaii end up homeless. I see no problem with convincing these folks to get on a plane for a state with low rents. If our appeals--and free one-way plane tickets--do not work, persuasion might be needed, e.g., cut off of local public assistance benefits. (Yes, a different standard for local versus mainland people.) Or perhaps even more “persuasion.”
But pushing homeless native Hawaiians to the mainland? I don’t think so.
(Large numbers of native Hawaiians have relocated to Vegas and the Pacific Northwest in recent decades, but these are primarily folks with a stable work history and minimal social problems, e.g., drug dependency. Big difference.)
Two observations:
1) More and more homeless native Hawaiians (and other low income folks) from Oahu will be moving to east Hawaii Island.
2) History has taught us that having large numbers of marginalized and frustrated poor people causes problems. Crime. Strife. Revolution, even. (To facetiously quip a statement regularly used several centuries ago: “M’Lord, we are having trouble with the rabble again.”)
We can ignore all this if we wish, but the link between the plight of homeless native Hawaiians and the sovereignty movement seems clear. Locally, the discontent might also have some link to the native Hawaiian opposition to some development projects.
RE: More on Homeless Native Hawaiians - kalakoa - 05-18-2017
If only there were some land set aside for the Native Hawaiians to build homes.
RE: More on Homeless Native Hawaiians - HereOnThePrimalEdge - 05-18-2017
Locally, the discontent also might have some link to the native Hawaiian opposition to some development projects.
Or, the discontent might have some link to the lack of development projects. For instance, why are Native Hawaiian homes not built on Native Hawaiian homestead properties administered by DHHL?
It... lends weight to Goethe's felicitous description of architecture as 'frozen music.' ... Does this, I often wonder, make music 'defrosted architecture?' Listening to Bach's Goldberg variations as I often do on walks when motorway noise and other auditory intrusions preclude the music of silence, it strikes me that it might. - Pub Walks in Underhill Country, Nat Segnit
RE: More on Homeless Native Hawaiians - kalakoa - 05-18-2017
why are Native Hawaiian homes not built on Native Hawaiian homestead properties
Short answer: because money.
Native Hawaiians who possess sufficient provable blood quanta may apply for a lease. If they don't die of old age while waiting for the lease to be awarded, "all they have to do is" build a fully code-compliant permitted house, which requirements now include a septic system. Of course, they don't own the land, so there's no passing it down to their descendants.
It's almost as if the whole system was designed to keep them from ever actually living on the land that was taken from them, then carefully set aside for their eventual use (if they can afford it).
Then we wonder why they're homeless.
A thatched hale was good enough for the Ancient Hawaiians, but today's building codes are far more important than actually providing shelter for people. (During some discussions about "recognition", County expressed "concern" that the Native Hawaiians would somehow be exempt from the building codes.)
Next: another tax increase to pay for more of that awesome "transitional housing" at $500 a square foot.
RE: More on Homeless Native Hawaiians - Eric1600 - 05-18-2017
You have to be careful with those numbers too. Native Hawaiian is often lumped in with Pacific Islanders. Here is the 2016 report for Oahu which has the biggest problem: https://www.honolulu.gov/rep/site/ohou/Statewide_2016_PIT_Report_-_Final.pdf and others can be found here: https://www.honolulu.gov/housing/ohou-who.html
Many Micronesians have moved to Hawaii in recent years as part of an agreement, Compact of Free Association (COFA), their nations have with the U.S. government that allows them to work and live in the country. They come for medical care, education and job opportunities. http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/29049224/state-officials-majority-of-kakaako-homeless-are-cofa-migrants
RE: More on Homeless Native Hawaiians - Cagary - 05-18-2017
quote:
Originally posted by kalakoa
why are Native Hawaiian homes not built on Native Hawaiian homestead properties
Short answer: because money.
Native Hawaiians who possess sufficient provable blood quanta may apply for a lease. If they don't die of old age while waiting for the lease to be awarded, "all they have to do is" build a fully code-compliant permitted house, which requirements now include a septic system. Of course, they don't own the land, so there's no passing it down to their descendants.
It's almost as if the whole system was designed to keep them from ever actually living on the land that was taken from them, then carefully set aside for their eventual use (if they can afford it).
Then we wonder why they're homeless.
A thatched hale was good enough for the Ancient Hawaiians, but today's building codes are far more important than actually providing shelter for people. (During some discussions about "recognition", County expressed "concern" that the Native Hawaiians would somehow be exempt from the building codes.)
Next: another tax increase to pay for more of that awesome "transitional housing" at $500 a square foot.
I see your point, but imagine if Native Hawaiians were exempt from building codes and during a storm the roof caved in on one of their homes or a keiki almost got electrocuted because a licensed electrician wasn't used for the wiring of the home. The amount of lawsuits and protests against the County for "allowing" Native Hawiians to live in substandard homes would be enormous.
-Veritas odium parit”(Terence 195–159 BC))-"Truth begets hatred".
RE: More on Homeless Native Hawaiians - SBH - 05-18-2017
Homelessness is down 32% on Hawaii Island. That's good news.
http://governor.hawaii.gov/newsroom/governor-ige-announces-a-nine-percent-decrease-in-states-homeless-population/
RE: More on Homeless Native Hawaiians - SBH - 05-18-2017
MarkD wrote: "More on Homeless Native Hawaiians"
... and it's not nice to call them More ons.
RE: More on Homeless Native Hawaiians - leilanidude - 05-18-2017
As noted in other posts, "Hawaiian" does not really mean Hawaiian and thus, the premise of the thread is incorrect because those listed would then count as a majority of the population and should have more homeless than others. The thread also uses a specific camp as some sort of proof that all homeless camps are the same as far as ethnicity.
RE: More on Homeless Native Hawaiians - randomq - 05-18-2017
Cagary, I suppose there should be some concept of personal authority and responsibility for yourself, children, and home. We could call it ... freedom?
Anyway, the same person could just as easily die in a tent when a tree falls on it, so the argument is moot.