Homeless in Hawaii

[AlohaSteven]

Addressing homelessness might happen most effectively at the state level or above, lest unintended negative consequences arise to penalize the success of humane efforts by specific islands or parts of an island.

It has been awhile since I lived in Berkeley and I do not know how the situation there is these days, but back when I did live in Berkeley unmarked white vans were observed routinely dumping out homeless people. The vans were coming over the hills from upscale locales in the Walnut Creek vicinity and elsewhere, where "security forces" either shoved or bribed homeless folks into vans, drove them to Berkeley, and literally kicked them out of the vans onto the streets of Berkeley with a warning to not return. The relatively humane local attitude and efforts toward the homeless, offering aid, not clearing out homeless people from sleeping in the parks, and so on in conjunction with the intolerance of surrounding areas led to a concentrating effect of homelessness in Berkeley. This in turn eventually led to problems which led to Berkeley passing city ordinances regarding aggressive pan-handling, more of a workload burden and expense on public health and law enforcement, and so on. Personally, subjectively, I think the ongoing dumping of homeless people locally also had an influence on a shift in local feelings about social problems in general -not exactly a hardening of the heart (that would be too simplistic a way to term it), but perhaps the development of a somewhat frustrated realism or slightly bitter maturity beginning to replace naive live-and-let-live idealism in the face of a difficult and intractably complex issue. Berkeley became more conservative through it all, in the sense that "a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged."

I know firsthand for a fact that hundreds (perhaps thousands) of the homeless people now in Alaska were put on airplanes headed to Anchorage from states in the Lower 48; this deportation appears to have been motivated more by the thought that these --often mentally ill-- homeless will find it more difficult to return from Alaska than that Alaska will do a better job in coping and caring than the point of origin. In other words, compassion does not appear to be a factor in this inter-state dumping of unwanted people. Alaska's relatively generous social system and yearly per-head payout of dividend money also attracts a steady influx of welfare bums and religious fanatics with huge families (the women are almost continuously pregnant; the girls are encouraged to drop out of school while still illiterate and to begin producing babies as soon as possible). Many of these are coming from overseas (e.g., Russia) as well as from the Lower 48; social frictions and significant increases in crime incidence and severity are often connected with this influx of people seeking to exploit local advantages yet who have no interest in "becoming locals" in the sense of adopting or even respecting local traditions, outlooks, or even learning the language.

It would be great to think that if Hilo and Puna really lean into the issues and successfully grapple with becoming "better places" for the homeless --and this acknowledging many among the homeless suffer through no fault of their own choices from mental illness, health problems (including traumatic brain injuries), addictions, or from simply losing a job in an expensive area and are not just lazy bums unwilling to work and welfare moochers-- that through succesful focus and devotion of resources the homeless situation locally may improve significantly. Maybe it would. Hopefully the homeless in other parts of the Big Island, the Hawaiian Islands, the mainland, and elsewhere would not then feel attracted to that success (or find themselves Hilo/Puna-bound in an unmarked van or on an airplane with a tiny bit of readjustment bribe money in hand and a one-way ticket after having been made "an offer you cannot refuse if you know what is good for you, or else").

I am not saying we should ignore the issues or refuse making a serious local effort to improve conditions, at all; I am saying that however well-intentioned a naive approach might be, it could conceivably make the situation worse and yield a compounded problem.

Effectively strengthening public education and health care in general, increased civic involvement and good leadership with regard to sustainable and environmentally sound economic development, and attention to the creation and preservation of diverse locally self-reliant employment and production systems (i.e., locally grown farmers markets vs imported produce) could do as much and perhaps more --long term-- to prevent and ameliorate the issues of homelessness as simply building homeless shelters or creating bigger pay-outs.