I made a few trips to Waikiki last week and found the homeless far less visible than my last visit in checks from the Elks Club end of Kapiolani Park through Ala Moana Park. I’ve also noticed fewer homeless in once-popular areas in Kakaako. I’ll take it as a sign that Gov. Neil Abercrombie’s homelessness [...]
Posted tagged ‘homelessness’
Do my eyes deceive me on Waikiki homeless?
September 13, 2011Abercrombie ups the stakes on homelessness
July 27, 2011Progress has been painfully slow in Gov. Neil Abercrombie’s high-profile battle to end homelessness in Hawai‘i, but give him credit for continuing to hack away at the problem and increase his personal accountability. A state phone line set up for citizens to report homeless people in need of services drew some derision when few useful [...]
City’s spinelessness on bus shelter stinks
July 15, 2011I can’t stop shaking my head over an excellent story by KITV’s Keoki Kerr about the city’s decision to temporarily move a bus stop on Kapiolani Boulevard across from Nordstrom to avoid dealing with a foul-smelling homeless woman who has been living at the shelter for a year. You really should see the whole piece, [...]
Abercrombie needs to get past the bombast on homelessness
June 9, 2011Returning to our lively discussion on homelessness from the other day, I thought the dedication of the Weinberg Foundation project in Waianae with 30 long-term townhouses and 20 transitional studios for low-income residents pointed up the challenge. This is a good project. Lack of affordable housing is the root problem for most of Hawai‘i’s homeless, [...]
Homeless plan or security sweep?
June 7, 2011Stories in the local media about Gov. Neil Abercrombie’s 90-day homeless plan have mentioned the timing in relation to the November APEC conference, but have allowed for the possibility of loftier goals than removing the homeless from the view plane of Barack Obama and other world leaders. Not so most of the stories circulating in [...]
Abercrombie thinks outside the collar
January 21, 2011We always knew that Gov. Neil Abercrombie would likely be full of more surprises than previous Hawai‘i governors, and he demonstrated it with his appointment of the Rev. Marc Alexander as his homelessness coordinator. Alexander, who is stepping down from the No. 2 position in the local Catholic church to take the job, has been [...]
Vagrant rights trump safe sidewalk passage
October 7, 2010It’s unbelievable that we don’t have laws on the books to allow police to move out vagrants who obstruct city sidewalks by setting up makeshift encampments, but apparently we don’t and the City Council is trying to remedy that. A bill that passed the Public Infrastructure Committee and will go before the full council later [...]
A timely idea on the homeless
July 15, 2010You never know where an excellent idea might come from, but I applaud Reps. Tom Brower, John Mizuno and Rida Cabanilla for their renewed push to create “safe zones” for homeless campers evicted from parks and beaches. We can’t keep telling the homeless where they can’t be without providing someplace they can be. According to [...]
Hannemann-Lingle homeless tango gets tiresome
July 1, 2010Continuing with homelessness, it was disappointing to see Mayor Mufi Hannemann and the Lingle administration wasting precious energy needed to solve this problem with more bickering over who deserves credit and who deserves blame. The mayor held a well-attended forum on homelessness this week, offending Lingle’s people who thought it was a campaign stunt aimed [...]
These are state legislators?
June 30, 2010I remember covering O’ahu District Court in the late 1960s when haole hippies brought in on marijuana busts would be offered an opportunity by the judge to have charges dropped if they got on a plane back to the Mainland by midnight. It’s like deja vu all over again with the move in the Legislature [...]
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