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"MarkD, be careful not to confuse the most vocal voices with those who are most representative." - HOTPE
So true. One of the biggest obstacles to the progress of Native Hawaiians as a group is also one of there most cherished cultural principles. That would be the practice of settling differences by talking story until some sort of consensus is reached without shaming or ostracizing the minority (losing) viewpoint. It sounds noble and good, but in practice it allows an extremist minority to seize the agenda and derail real reform and advancement. Sometimes indigenous cultures have to change and adapt cherished concepts in order to survive.
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It would be nice to hear native Hawaiians articulate a good platform.
Yes
Look at all the flack I get
Many of the comments are simply correcting a misunderstanding or misinterpretation of the facts.
Professor Chang's... explanation of how the big money that was made... and then causing major price rises in real estate
I think you are working very hard at finding a correlation between Native Hawaiians, Native Hawaiian homelessness, and high priced real estate and rents in Hawaii. This is not a problem unique to Hawaii or the Hawaiian people. There was a man who ran for mayor of NYC some time ago with a single issue, "The rents are too damn high!" NYC has had rent control for decades. Housing is unaffordable in San Francisco and San Jose. Chicago built Cabrini Green 50 years ago to try and solve the high cost of housing in their city.
The rent is too high everywhere. We can analyze papers and charts and graphs but in the end, I don't see the Hawaii - Native Hawaiian - homeless situation as much different than anywhere else in America. Who doesn't think their rent is too high? I'm sure we can find people in Pahoa, Peoria, or Poughkeepsie who would agree their rents are outrageous.
"I'm at that stage in life where I stay out of discussions. Even if you say 1+1=5, you're right - have fun." - Keanu Reeves
HOTPE.
It may be easier to move from cities like Chicago or New York if the rent or cost of living gets to high than from Kau or Puna. Many Educated White Folks that are pushed out of New York or Chicago today may move to cities like Pittsburgh or Minneapolis and do better for themselves tomorrow.
Where as Uneducated Hawaiians once pushed off their lands in Puna may have a harder time adjusting to cities like Las Vegas or Boise. There are more squatters and Homeless folks in Puna now than ever before, many of them do have some Hawaiian blood. jmo
Where in HAWAII can these many Hawaiian squatters, homeless, veterans and retirees that are being pushed out of Puna today move so they could experience a better living situation tomorrow?
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Where in HAWAII can these many Hawaiian squatters, homeless, veterans and retirees that are being pushed out of Puna today move so they could experience a better living situation tomorrow?
Hawaiian Homelands? If DHHL were better managed and made providing land for as many Hawaiian people as possible their #1 goal.
Here is a map of DHHL areas on Big Island. One of them is 3 to 4 times the size of Hilo:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-At33uShXnMA/To...0/dhhl.jpg
"I'm at that stage in life where I stay out of discussions. Even if you say 1+1=5, you're right - have fun." - Keanu Reeves
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HOTPE,
The case is crystal clear between increasing numbers of homeless native Hawaiians and other low income local people on Oahu and rising rents. The fact that homelessness and gentrification occur elsewhere only supports my position.
Your quotes: "Who doesn't think their rent is too high? The rent is too high everywhere." Most of the whole stretch of the country from Mississippi to Detroit has very affordable housing. (middle America) Community consensus in these places is that rent is low and affordable.
Community consensus on Oahu, SF Bay area, NYC, etc. is that rents are very high and unaffordable for many.
I am going disengage on this topic; when folks can't agree on some basic things, that = zero progress. There are other things to talk about.
(Thanks for the HHL map. Very useful)
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Most of the whole stretch of the country from Mississippi to Detroit has very affordable housing. (middle America) Community consensus in these places is that rent is low and affordable.
Affordable housing means little if jobs are unavailable. Without an income you can't pay even $100 a month for an apartment. Look at Puna, we have some of the most "affordable" housing in Hawaii, but few jobs. You have to factor in all of the conditions and variables to see the big picture.
Here are your three cities in the Midwest with jobs, affordable housing, and quality of life; Oklahoma City, Omaha, Des Moines.
http://gizmodo.com/only-three-us-cities-...1781562314
Yes, there are high housing costs in Hawaii. Yes there are homeless native Hawaiian people. But to focus your observations only on a single group, when rent is high for Caucasians, Japanese, Filipino's, and everyone else in the islands, is overlooking the vast scope of the problem.
Especially when back in your OP you use that premise to rationalize "Protectors" opposition to the TMT:
Locally, the discontent also might have some link to the native Hawaiian opposition to some development projects.
Seems like a circuitous route with many detours required to get from Point A (homeless) to Point B (TMT). DHHL could put up shelters for the homeless on their vast land holdings if they wanted to. That's the direct route.
"I'm at that stage in life where I stay out of discussions. Even if you say 1+1=5, you're right - have fun." - Keanu Reeves
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MarkD,
What you see here on Puna Web is just a microcosm of Hawaii at large, in the sense that, whatever is posted, is done with a given world-view and an objective in mind. Prof. Chang's paper is in the same vein. The drive to open up leasehold lands came largely from individual home-owners who were facing huge jumps in their lease rates that they were completely powerless to prevent.
The standing fiction at the time was that the lease rates were "renegotiated" - where the "negotiation" was "here's your new rate, pay-up or sell out to someone who will..." (kind of reminds me of Bruce Willis' attitude toward negotiation in The Fifth Element). The fiction was also that leasehold land allowed individuals to purchase a home at a lower cost: that might work for the first buyer, but subsequent sales seldom, if ever, took into account the potential rise in annual rents as the term of the lease approached its end date (and, in fact, some condo lease contracts turned ownership of the units back to the landowner at the end of the lease with no compensation to the unit "owners").
The bottom line was that the owner had absolutely no power in the negotiation (other than political power to change the system). And a sufficient number of home owners were able to get the attention of the legislature, only when the lease terms ended on a massive number of units in Hawaii Kai and elsewhere in the Honolulu area. (I'm not an advocate for either side here - I smelled a rat with leasehold when I first heard about it and wouldn't touch a leasehold property on a bet - and paid a higher price for a lesser house. The leasehold buyers were foolish and irresponsible for signing/purchasing such unfavorable contracts - the landowners were pushing for all they could get and made the mistake of "renegotiating" a lot of leases at one time and thus generated the backlash that deprived them of their lands - at market prices.) But Prof. Chang is, as far as I am concerned, blowing smoke, trying to find a nefarious villain in the C-F that is Hawaiian politics - where I think there was plenty of blame to be shared by all concerned.
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geochem,
That's a generally fair interpretation. I agree the leasehold concept was/is bad for most lessees. One part of Chang's piece referred to a particular situation at Kahala that might have represented only a small percentage of the whole conversion process. Might be some truth to what he described relating to the large profits made by the lease purchasers in Kahala and the reinvestment of those profits in other neighborhoods.
Sorry I have no more views on all the thoughts that you spent time to compile. I am worn out after the previous highly unprofitable conversations.....
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Rest easy MarkD, your heart is in the right place. It's a complicated issue with no easy solutions.
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It's also not a problem you can understand well or solve by reading stuff on the internet. Almost all of my Native Hawaiian friends avoid social media, forums and creating "posts" of any kind. Even very prominent Native Hawaiians, like two of the homestead presidents, dislikes videos being taken of them in support of anything and being put on the internet. When they appear in the news, it's incidental and if they had their choice, they'd avoid that too.
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