05-21-2017, 11:45 AM
geochem, Thanks for your comments. I see two related issues: Too many homeless native Hawaiians and, second, the far more complex matter of how HHL (and OHA) are handling of native Hawaiians’ money and affairs. Many others know more about the second subject than I do.
I linked the Aljazeera America article because it seemed highly informative. I do not agree with everything in it. More specific points:
1) You asked if we should “burden” the taxpayers with supporting a single racial group. Should not the Hawaiians control their trust lands (and possibly ceded lands?) for market-level profits? If there is a reason that the answer ought to be No, I am interested in hearing it. (200,000 acres trust land, 1.8 million acres ceded land) Attached paper from UH law professor can help address the question. (I am wading through it.)
https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/bi...ct2014.pdf
The Aljazeera article asserts “prime tracts of land have also been leased to the federal and state governments, often with little compensation.” I do not know if the “little compensation” statement is accurate, nor if there are limitations on the lease of trust lands. Whatever the case, if Hawaiians profit here, it seems more akin to American Indians doing the same with reservation land. Seems inappropriate to perceive it as a drain on taxpayers.
2. Not sure who could best help HHL. I cited the Dept. of Interior because of its prominent proposal several years ago. Apparently the Hawaiians want nothing to do with the plan. Again, other folks can advise better here.
3. The homeless issue seems more straightforward. You write: “40 and 50 years ago...I was here then, and the disparity between Hawaii and mainland housing costs were no less.” How about a comparison in the disparity in rents then and now in Hawaii only? More relevant, I believe.
And what better indicates an affordable housing problem than homelessness? I moved to Hilo from the mainland in 1978. Rented a 3-br house for $400. Anyone on entry level wage then, about $5-6 an hour, could easily find housing. Homelessness was almost unheard of then.
I won’t repeat what a different story it is in Hawaii today.
Entirely correct on the “poorly educated and unskilled...always (being)...at an economic disadvantage.” But it seems we have 2 unique things going on: 1) Native Hawaiians, a disproportionately low income group, aren’t just yet another ethnic category in our state; they are indigenous to the islands. 2) Hawaii, being both small in size (relatively) and an island state, differs from the mainland in terms of dislocated people being pressured to move on.
On the mainland you can get up and drive. If some low income minority folks priced out of housing in the S.F. Bay Area, for example, end up moving 100 miles east or even to Vegas, well, things happen. But putting homeless native Hawaiians on a plane? I am not suggesting that anyone has even implied this, but looking nationwide at the involuntary displacement that often follows gentrification, we see some people moving far from the places of their birth.
I suspect that a rising number of native Hawaiians are getting uneasy about the trends and pace of change in Hawaii.
I linked the Aljazeera America article because it seemed highly informative. I do not agree with everything in it. More specific points:
1) You asked if we should “burden” the taxpayers with supporting a single racial group. Should not the Hawaiians control their trust lands (and possibly ceded lands?) for market-level profits? If there is a reason that the answer ought to be No, I am interested in hearing it. (200,000 acres trust land, 1.8 million acres ceded land) Attached paper from UH law professor can help address the question. (I am wading through it.)
https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/bi...ct2014.pdf
The Aljazeera article asserts “prime tracts of land have also been leased to the federal and state governments, often with little compensation.” I do not know if the “little compensation” statement is accurate, nor if there are limitations on the lease of trust lands. Whatever the case, if Hawaiians profit here, it seems more akin to American Indians doing the same with reservation land. Seems inappropriate to perceive it as a drain on taxpayers.
2. Not sure who could best help HHL. I cited the Dept. of Interior because of its prominent proposal several years ago. Apparently the Hawaiians want nothing to do with the plan. Again, other folks can advise better here.
3. The homeless issue seems more straightforward. You write: “40 and 50 years ago...I was here then, and the disparity between Hawaii and mainland housing costs were no less.” How about a comparison in the disparity in rents then and now in Hawaii only? More relevant, I believe.
And what better indicates an affordable housing problem than homelessness? I moved to Hilo from the mainland in 1978. Rented a 3-br house for $400. Anyone on entry level wage then, about $5-6 an hour, could easily find housing. Homelessness was almost unheard of then.
I won’t repeat what a different story it is in Hawaii today.
Entirely correct on the “poorly educated and unskilled...always (being)...at an economic disadvantage.” But it seems we have 2 unique things going on: 1) Native Hawaiians, a disproportionately low income group, aren’t just yet another ethnic category in our state; they are indigenous to the islands. 2) Hawaii, being both small in size (relatively) and an island state, differs from the mainland in terms of dislocated people being pressured to move on.
On the mainland you can get up and drive. If some low income minority folks priced out of housing in the S.F. Bay Area, for example, end up moving 100 miles east or even to Vegas, well, things happen. But putting homeless native Hawaiians on a plane? I am not suggesting that anyone has even implied this, but looking nationwide at the involuntary displacement that often follows gentrification, we see some people moving far from the places of their birth.
I suspect that a rising number of native Hawaiians are getting uneasy about the trends and pace of change in Hawaii.