Love Thy Tourist?

[kalakoa]

incoherent and lacking in actual facts

Yet the system we have is clearly broken...

[PaulW]

Gypsy says the tourism industry employs few local workers. Where do you come up with these bizarre opinions?
Are we importing Mexicans for this? It's not only your math skills that are letting you down.

Tourism is a goldmine. Without it, taxes have to go up and the residents are the ones that will have to pay.
Many people don't realize the overall benefit of a healthy tourism industry, they just look at what's in it for them.

[Guest]

Not going to disagree with you PaulW, tourism is a gold mine! Just saying it may not benefit all local residents or even most at this point in time. Positive Tourism changes should mean or be decided by more than #'s of visitors, visitors spending, or profit margins. A strong or positive tourism industry(airlines, cruise ships, resorts, restaurants, county, state, and government) could help local communities battle with their increase in homeless. Ideas like this one in this article shouldn't be ignored, but rather explored to help offer as many options as possible for what is the inevitable (more homeless in paradise)!.

http://www.yesmagazine.org/peace-justice...y-20160128

Local and Hawaiian residents deserve more dignity than to be rounded up and shipped off like cattle to some new sandy homeless isle,jmo.

Editing to add jiberish plus no one has responded yet so I think this is still legal on a forum.

Anyway if the state was willing to spend how ever many millions on those tiny extra classrooms at the keaau school for those displaced pahoa school kids. Then why not use them or build cheaper little homeless homes for our states displaced homeless? They could ask for a small monthly amount(say $50) to help promote respectful living and upkeep by the once homeless.
So many abandoned places could be bought reasonably priced and converted into quick homeless shelters. Like the hilo bowling lanes, the old hilo hotel, the old keaau elementary just for starters. Also many of our various churches could reach out to the homeless in various ways, if they don't already. I know the new hope foundation church has helped out several homeless families in puna recently.
Also many of those 20' and 40' foot shipping containers could be converted to help some area homeless fairly quickly and cheaply. Many of these unused containers just sit rusting on Oahu during this homeless crises, they could be mobile or moved easily which could be viewed as homeless pluses. Jmo.

[kalakoa]

those 20' and 40' foot shipping containers could be converted

Happening on Sand Island (Oahu), but it isn't cheap; the shelters end up costing about $100/sf. I wonder what's included in the markup?