08-15-2015, 04:03 AM
I am downtown virtually every day and I can tell you that most of the people who are sleeping in the doorways on the Bay front are well beyond being able to "choose" much of anything. The woman I see every day who argues with the walls and the guy who walks a dog only he can see are not on the same plane as the rest of us and are not capable of getting themselves off the streets at this point. The mental wards were emptied and shut down under Reagan, and never reopened, so we've been a country that uses the streets to house the mentally ill for 30 years now.
Hilo's homeless population is pretty stable, and most are locals, a few young mainlander "travelers" as they call themselves do drift in every winter but they don't seem to stick around very long. The same people are sleeping in the same doorways every morning when I come into my office early, and it wouldn't take much to get these folks off the street. Utah reduced homelessness by 90% with a Housing First initiative, they get people into spartan but safe single occupancy housing without any strings attached like completing rehab first, and have found that a lot of the drug and alcohol abuse resolves itself once people feel safe and have a home of their own. People who work in the field say that a lot of the drug and alcohol abuse is self medicating to alleviate the stress of living on the streets, when people get safe and stable housing the abuse goes away.
It is very dangerous to be homeless, especially for women, this guy was a predator who took advantage of someone who was totally vulnerable. I'm really glad this guy was caught right away and think we may find that he has done this other places if anyone looks at his travel history. I don't think the police would have responded so promptly and thoroughly to the murder of a street person in a lot of other communities.