More on Homeless Native Hawaiians

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

TomK,
Yes the HELCO rates were far beyond the means of the average Hawaiian a few hundred years ago. That's why many resorted to coconut shell & seawater generators for their electrical needs. For some reason, no one has posted an old photo of the device on the Internet, but here's one of a working replica used more recently by a group of stranded castaways on an uncharted desert isle:

http://images.mentalfloss.com/sites/defa....18_pm.png


It... lends weight to Goethe's felicitous description of architecture as 'frozen music.' ... Does this, I often wonder, make music 'defrosted architecture?' Listening to Bach's Goldberg variations as I often do on walks when motorway noise and other auditory intrusions preclude the music of silence, it strikes me that it might. - Pub Walks in Underhill Country, Nat Segnit

[TomK]

"This once famous man could have lived anywhere and anyway he wanted. He chose to live Pono on the Big Island and may still be doing so today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLv5lrkOh-M"

This guy obviously enjoys his life, and good for him, but it wasn't hard to spot that he used a boat with an outboard motor, had modern fishing gear, used plastic containers, wore modern manufactured clothing, had a gasolene-powered vehicle and narrated the video using modern technology.

Many homeless folks today may choose to remain homeless rather than live with the many bills and expectations that come with further development.

I have no idea if that's a true statement or not, but the guy in the video certainly took advantage of "further development". That is unless you want to claim that the outboard motor was invented in Hawaii centuries ago, amongst the other technology in the video.

[kalakoa]

County just looks the other way thereby protecting itself by being able to say that they didn't know

Then by definition, their intentional ignorance is color-blind.

[MarkP]

quote:

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Originally posted by MarkD

Good comment from MarkP on the Protectors' thread: "(The Protectors) would be shoe-ins for simply going and homesteading Hawaiian Homelands without the blessing of DHHL." Emphatic Yes.

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Most importantly it would establish credibility that they don't have since at the moment they seem like ambulance chasers to me.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

“Essentially, the state of Hawaii, governor after governor, has been land banking, land hoarding trust lands for business opportunities
...
You don’t get to take trust land and use it for business opportunities for the state.

Then, if the problem is with using state land for business opportunities, why not protest the business leases? What's the point of protesting land use for research facilities? Like schools, universities, and other educational agencies, they aren't exactly raking in the big bucks. (contrary to what some will say with their usual lack of evidence)

It... lends weight to Goethe's felicitous description of architecture as 'frozen music.' ... Does this, I often wonder, make music 'defrosted architecture?' Listening to Bach's Goldberg variations as I often do on walks when motorway noise and other auditory intrusions preclude the music of silence, it strikes me that it might. - Pub Walks in Underhill Country, Nat Segnit

[geochem]

quote:

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Originally posted by MarkD
This July 2015 Aljazeera America article gives a good overview.

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/20...-land.html

Quote from story:
“Essentially, the state of Hawaii, governor after governor, has been land banking, land hoarding trust lands for business opportunities while Hawaiians, whom the land is clearly supposed to go to, die on the waitlist,” said Robin Danner, who co-founded the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement. “What they will tell you is, ‘Oh, we can’t give it to you because there’s no infrastructure. There’s no roads. There’s no water. There’s no money. The land is not usable for Hawaiians.’ And I just say, Bull****. You don’t get to take trust land and use it for business opportunities for the state. You don’t get to take the Hawaiian Homes waitlist and turn it into the death list. They either have the wrong priorities or there’s incompetence.”

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MarkD, you raise some interesting points but present selected, highly biased, perspectives on those. DHHL leases land to businesses because it provides lease revenue to allow them to develop the required infrastructure to place Hawaiians on the DHHL lands.

Some of the statements you quote imply that the state should provide those funds from tax revenue. Really? Should the state burden all the state's taxpayers with costs for the benefit of a single racial group of defined blood quantum? How do you think that would work out? or survive a constitutional challenge? There are many Federal and State programs - as well as the very large elephant (Kamehameha Schools) - that favor those of Hawaiian ancestry - so far, most have not had to stand up to a serious challenge of their legality under the US constitution (although Kamehameha Schools had to buy their way out of one before it got to the Supreme Court).

It's entirely true that DHHL lands were mismanaged in the past - and the agency is under constant pressure today by the politically connected (some of whom are of Hawaiian ancestry) to continue to mismanage those lands. But suggesting that they be managed by Dept. of Interior is at best entertaining: ask the Native American Indians how Bureau of Indian Affairs has done (mis)managing their lands...

And the claim that today's Hawaiians' access to housing is more disadvantaged than 40 and 50 years ago is ludicrous: I was here then, and the disparity between Hawaii and mainland housing costs were no less, on a percentage basis, then than they are now. And there was a good deal less Hawaii land available to purchase then since residential leasehold land was commonly the only "affordable" land available.

The poorly educated and unskilled will always be at an economic disadvantage - whether of Hawaiian, Caucasian, Chinese, Japanese, or any other ethnicity - and will always be squeezed out of desirable places to live - it's called a market economy. Likely more so in the future than in the past. Inadequate access to education is a part of that - but the absence of recognition (by the parental generation) that education and acquisition of marketable skill sets is the best remedy for that disadvantage, is a larger part of the problem.

Another major part of the problem is the scarcity of economic opportunities in Hawaii. Many with marketable skill sets and education have no choice but to leave in order to be employed in the field of their training - if they want an economically secure future. If you want fewer homeless - of all ethnicities - then work to establish an economically viable and sustainable economy...

[knieft]

quote:

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Originally posted by HereOnThePrimalEdge
...but here's one of a working replica used more recently by a group of stranded castaways on an uncharted desert isle:

http://images.mentalfloss.com/sites/defa....18_pm.png


[size=1][i]It... lends weight to Goethe's felicitous description

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Goethe doesn't know squat, but Beatles or the Stones? Ginger or MaryAnne? No Ginger in the photo! You're slipping HotPE, right down the slope that's slippery!

Cheers,
Kirt

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

No Ginger in the photo!

Isn't it obvious Kirt? Ginger must be taking the photo - - with the coconut & peeled seaweed film camera invented by the Professor! (I have to say, he did a good job keeping the proportional distortion so low for a fisheye lens)

It... lends weight to Goethe's felicitous description of architecture as 'frozen music.' ... Does this, I often wonder, make music 'defrosted architecture?' Listening to Bach's Goldberg variations as I often do on walks when motorway noise and other auditory intrusions preclude the music of silence, it strikes me that it might. - Pub Walks in Underhill Country, Nat Segnit

[MarkD]

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.

[VancouverIslander]

quote:

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Originally posted by kalakoa

because there's no infrastructure. There's no roads. There's no water. There's no money. The land is not usable

Sounds like Hawaiian Acres.

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The difference is that for 10-20k you can just buy a lot in HA and there's no wait list, you can probably get away with building whatever off grid and can pass it down to your children when you die.

Me ka ha`aha`a,
Mike