Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

Eugene

(61,595 posts)
Sat Oct 17, 2015, 01:12 PM Oct 2015

Hawaii governor declares state of emergency amid homelessness crisis

Source: Associated Press

Hawaii governor David Ige has declared a state of emergency to deal with the state’s homelessness crisis, just days after city and state officials cleared one of the nation’s largest homeless encampments.

The move will help the state speed up the process of building a homeless shelter for families, and the state is considering four possible sites, Ige said at a news conference on Friday.

“We are making sure that we have options for those who are homeless to move into an emergency shelter, and the biggest deficit in the system is shelter space for families,” Ige said. “So the emergency proclamation would allow us to stand up shelters for families in an expeditious manner.”

Hawaii saw a 23% increase in its unsheltered homeless population between 2014 and 2015, and a 46% increase in the number of unsheltered families, said Scott Morishige, state homelessness coordinator.

[font size=1]-snip-[/font]


Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/17/hawaii-homelessness-state-of-emergency



Associated Press in Honolulu
Saturday 17 October 2015 14.39 BST
32 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Hawaii governor declares state of emergency amid homelessness crisis (Original Post) Eugene Oct 2015 OP
.... V0ltairesGh0st Oct 2015 #1
Hmmm. In light of the increase in housing costs in many of jwirr Oct 2015 #2
Yes. The cost of housing there murielm99 Oct 2015 #4
Thank you for the information. It seems to me that there jwirr Oct 2015 #6
I am told that incomes are lower than they are on the mainland. murielm99 Oct 2015 #7
That is really terrible. jwirr Oct 2015 #9
But its been that way for decades. Why the sudden problem now? 7962 Oct 2015 #16
A combination of things. Western states ship people to us with one-way tickets. mahina Oct 2015 #26
I had no idea meth was even in Hawaii. I thought it was more my neck of the woods 7962 Oct 2015 #27
lol mahina Oct 2015 #25
many of these so-called homeless do not want to live in state developed shelter. they prefer msongs Oct 2015 #3
Wasn't there a problem with louis-t Oct 2015 #5
yep mahina Oct 2015 #28
They need higher housing density ErikJ Oct 2015 #8
Oh for fucks sake... Sen. Walter Sobchak Oct 2015 #21
Bottom line. The more housing the lower the prices. ErikJ Oct 2015 #22
Except that doesn't actually happen where the need is the greatest Sen. Walter Sobchak Oct 2015 #23
Real estate is the sink for QE (Money printing). newthinking Oct 2015 #24
ha...yeah the developers are working on that. mahina Oct 2015 #29
My friend died on the streets of Honolulu in December 2014 ghostsinthemachine Oct 2015 #10
This is from an article regarding the homeless there. > BlueJazz Oct 2015 #11
I have some friends that lived in Hawaii. leftyladyfrommo Oct 2015 #12
Sounds like my "plan B" JohnnyRingo Oct 2015 #13
This is a national problem. Homelessness has shyrocketed. Live and Learn Oct 2015 #14
Homeless Repatriation Program Officially Expands to Maui Submariner Oct 2015 #15
This is what confuses me Sen. Walter Sobchak Oct 2015 #19
watch what they do and not what they say reddread Oct 2015 #17
This message was self-deleted by its author Sen. Walter Sobchak Oct 2015 #18
Location, location, location packman Oct 2015 #20
Not directed at you, but what the hell are we supposed to do? mahina Oct 2015 #30
Just making an observation - Not directing any negativity to you packman Oct 2015 #31
I read you buddy, likewise. mahina Oct 2015 #32
 

V0ltairesGh0st

(306 posts)
1. ....
Sat Oct 17, 2015, 01:20 PM
Oct 2015

Last edited Sat Oct 17, 2015, 03:46 PM - Edit history (1)

We have got to re-learn how to start taking care of each other. And it must start from those who have the most to give going downward. I don't have much but i just cannot stand to see someone with literally NOTHING.

jwirr

(39,215 posts)
2. Hmmm. In light of the increase in housing costs in many of
Sat Oct 17, 2015, 01:21 PM
Oct 2015

our cities on the mainland I wonder if that might not be what is happening in Hawaii? Is Hawaii out pricing the less fortunate in their state? In other words why are so many suddenly homeless now?

murielm99

(30,656 posts)
4. Yes. The cost of housing there
Sat Oct 17, 2015, 02:17 PM
Oct 2015

is obscene. Many people with good jobs live on the beaches. They cannot begin to afford housing.

Everything there is expensive. Many things are imported. Food is outrageous.

I think if they started some local farming and cottage industries, it might help them. It might be a good way for some of the homeless to find shelter as well.

jwirr

(39,215 posts)
6. Thank you for the information. It seems to me that there
Sat Oct 17, 2015, 02:44 PM
Oct 2015

is going to come a time when the only people who live in these areas are going to be the rich. I wonder if they have thought about who is going to do the work to keep the communities running?

As far as homelessness I think that they could use some good old fashioned housing program to build housing for these people. Rent controlled and rented at 30% of their income. Nice apartments earmarked for the low income user only and with rental rates determined on an average around the country instead of one area. They would probably also have to raise the maximum level of income because these areas are so expensive.

murielm99

(30,656 posts)
7. I am told that incomes are lower than they are on the mainland.
Sat Oct 17, 2015, 03:02 PM
Oct 2015

Yet prices are higher!

Many military people are stationed there. I knew someone who was, a family friend. They were largely protected by living and shopping on base. But they noticed how things were for average people.

My daughter considered playing in a symphony there. Her salary was much lower than a mainland job would have been. Housing was higher. She said that if she lived there, she could never afford to fly home for visits.

After she spoke to me, I looked up some of the statistics. The people there need to get together and demand reform.

 

7962

(11,841 posts)
16. But its been that way for decades. Why the sudden problem now?
Sat Oct 17, 2015, 05:30 PM
Oct 2015

Hawaii has always been a ridiculously expensive place to live.

mahina

(17,506 posts)
26. A combination of things. Western states ship people to us with one-way tickets.
Sat Oct 17, 2015, 10:03 PM
Oct 2015

Meth hasn't helped.

Wages are low, costs are high, education SUCKS, jobs are limited, prior admins pointed the finger and wore blinders, we slowly let our parks become homeless encampments, nobody knows what to do with them because we can't kick them out as we are a part of the US.

Staggering development of glass towers for zillionaires very literally right next to Hoovervilles.

For starters.

Crime is increasing and lots of the perpetrators are homeless, speaking from news stats and personal, recent and expensive experience.

 

7962

(11,841 posts)
27. I had no idea meth was even in Hawaii. I thought it was more my neck of the woods
Sat Oct 17, 2015, 10:07 PM
Oct 2015

I always thought people in Hawaii were smarter than the rest of us!!

mahina

(17,506 posts)
25. lol
Sat Oct 17, 2015, 10:00 PM
Oct 2015

Last edited Sun Oct 18, 2015, 08:28 PM - Edit history (1)


http://www.hawaiiseed.org/local-issues/taro/
http://www.honoluluhi5.com/blog/farmers-market-guide/
http://archives.starbulletin.com/2007/06/04/news/story01.html

When the taro farmer at Ke'anae on the first vid says that there were taro lo'i there since farming began here, he is talking about a period of approximately a thousand years.

There are an enormous number of crafters and artists too, as well as a major indigenous effort to restore and support local farming.

It's ok Muriel.

msongs

(67,194 posts)
3. many of these so-called homeless do not want to live in state developed shelter. they prefer
Sat Oct 17, 2015, 01:22 PM
Oct 2015

the streets to that. but not all of them.

 

ErikJ

(6,335 posts)
8. They need higher housing density
Sat Oct 17, 2015, 03:12 PM
Oct 2015

Honolulus housing density is pretty low compared to Hong Kong and New York. Need lot more apartments and high density projects to bring the rents down.

 

Sen. Walter Sobchak

(8,692 posts)
21. Oh for fucks sake...
Sat Oct 17, 2015, 07:26 PM
Oct 2015

You know damn well that "higher housing density" means luxury condos virtually without exception. You're going to need fifty years or more of residential succession before any of the new "higher housing density" in most cities has any discernible benefit to anyone but those with a "significant parental backstop" or investors and speculators.

 

ErikJ

(6,335 posts)
22. Bottom line. The more housing the lower the prices.
Sat Oct 17, 2015, 08:06 PM
Oct 2015

I think high-density gentrific is a good thing. It keeps the white collars from having to commute in their big polluting SUVs 40 miles a day and reduces housing pressure in the suburb apts.
And lots of inner cities designate any new multi-housing have a minimum of low-rent mixed income housing for low income city workers. Or even homeless where they pay 30% of their income for the apt. If they lose their job they pay nothing.

 

Sen. Walter Sobchak

(8,692 posts)
23. Except that doesn't actually happen where the need is the greatest
Sat Oct 17, 2015, 08:33 PM
Oct 2015

New York, London, Toronto etc. have all been in a high-density building boom for more than a decade. Yet the pre-existing housing crises in these cities and their peers have only worsened. A lottery that will install a lucky few into new subsidized apartments doesn't even scratch the surface. A high-density building spree in Hawaii would build a whole lot of new AirBNB unit, condos used a dozen nights a year and units that would be completely empty and owned by offshore "investors".

Building the slums of the future doesn't actually address any of today's housing issues. I have worked on financing a few large condo developments. These aren't built as primary housing, they're pied a terres and college dorms for the wealthy and places for foreign gangsters to hide money. One of the projects I worked on didn't even have kitchens in most of the units.

The private sector is not going to build our way out of the affordable housing crisis, in the US or anywhere else. People shilling for high density developments are just useful idiots for developers.

newthinking

(3,982 posts)
24. Real estate is the sink for QE (Money printing).
Sat Oct 17, 2015, 09:44 PM
Oct 2015

There is also a direct link between the decrease in the capital gains tax rate and affordability of housing.

Changes to those contributers are not even on the table.

ghostsinthemachine

(3,569 posts)
10. My friend died on the streets of Honolulu in December 2014
Sat Oct 17, 2015, 03:17 PM
Oct 2015

After being illegally evicted from his home of many years. In a wheelchair, serious medical issues (Diabetes, heart problems etc).

It took us (Friends and fellow tessellators) months to find out anything about him. Seriously fucked up.....

 

BlueJazz

(25,348 posts)
11. This is from an article regarding the homeless there. >
Sat Oct 17, 2015, 03:34 PM
Oct 2015

“Waikiki has seen an influx of homeless individuals who sit and lie on the sidewalks making it difficult for pedestrians to walk on the sidewalk or access businesses, which can create an unsafe and uninviting situation,” said Mike McCartney, president and CEO of the Hawaii Tourism Authority, in testimony to the Council.

Homeless people in Waikiki say if the proposals are passed it won’t alter their lives very much, because they’re already often cited for camping out, racking up tickets they can’t afford to pay.

“They’re trying to harass everyone, and they’re doing a pretty good job of it,” Trevarthen said.


Just Sad.

leftyladyfrommo

(18,816 posts)
12. I have some friends that lived in Hawaii.
Sat Oct 17, 2015, 04:29 PM
Oct 2015

They all had to back here because it is just so expensive that you can't afford to live there on a regular salary.

Probably a lot of people try to live down on the beaches

JohnnyRingo

(18,581 posts)
13. Sounds like my "plan B"
Sat Oct 17, 2015, 04:31 PM
Oct 2015

I've always half joked that if everything in my life went to hell, I'd sell my meager possessions and buy a one-way ticket to Hawaii. I could get off the plane ask ask directions to the nearest welfare office.

I figured being homeless and poor on an island paradise is superior to living a life of total destitution in Youngstown, Ohio. It now sounds like I wasn't the first to think of it.

Live and Learn

(12,769 posts)
14. This is a national problem. Homelessness has shyrocketed.
Sat Oct 17, 2015, 05:00 PM
Oct 2015

I went to a local DNC meeting today and that was all anybody wanted to talk about (much to the chagrin of the politicians that were speaking).

Submariner

(12,485 posts)
15. Homeless Repatriation Program Officially Expands to Maui
Sat Oct 17, 2015, 05:01 PM
Oct 2015
http://mauinow.com/2015/10/16/homeless-repatriation-program-officially-expands-to-maui/

Buy the homeless a plane ticket back to the mainland to family and/or friends.

A neighbor of mine two buildings away just made himself homeless when his meth lab exploded and blew the sliding glass doors over 100 feet away and scorched the walls/ceiling with the resulting flames.

Indigenous families need and should get state help finding affordable housing, but bums like my ex-neighbor are all over the place cooking meth, selling weed, and getting food stamps just to get by in a place they cannot afford.
 

Sen. Walter Sobchak

(8,692 posts)
19. This is what confuses me
Sat Oct 17, 2015, 06:23 PM
Oct 2015

A lot of the panhandlers I have seen in Hawaii either have Southern or East Coast accents, so... how did they get there in the first place?

 

reddread

(6,896 posts)
17. watch what they do and not what they say
Sat Oct 17, 2015, 05:51 PM
Oct 2015

that bullshit about Utah curing homelessness was circulated so many times.
how do people even begin to believe those fairy tales?
oh, right. thats what media is for.

Response to Eugene (Original post)

 

packman

(16,296 posts)
20. Location, location, location
Sat Oct 17, 2015, 06:49 PM
Oct 2015

I wonder how people can live in places like San Francisco, Boston, New York, Hawaii. There has to be a tipping point somewhere in those insanely expensive areas.

mahina

(17,506 posts)
30. Not directed at you, but what the hell are we supposed to do?
Sat Oct 17, 2015, 10:17 PM
Oct 2015

My whole family is here, my grandparents and great grands are buried here, I was born and raised here. This is my home.

Housing is expensive on the continent too, and it's not all roses there either.

Choices we make.

 

packman

(16,296 posts)
31. Just making an observation - Not directing any negativity to you
Sat Oct 17, 2015, 10:23 PM
Oct 2015

Just that housing in many areas is getting beyond the reach of people and forcing them to make difficult decisions on their lifestyles and housing. Indeed it is choices.

Latest Discussions»Latest Breaking News»Hawaii governor declares ...