#8 Honolulu, HI
by National Coalition for the Homeless
Since 2006, the City Council has closed a large number of beach parks on the leeward coast of Oahu for “cleaning,” sending teams of police officers to remove people from their temporary homes; the Council has also banned overnight sleeping in at least seven leeward coast parks in two years.
According to the Honolulu Advertiser, a local newspaper, City Council Member Todd Apo said it was important that homeless individuals not get too closely attached to certain beaches or parks because it makes it harder to move them when the time comes. “When they put up structures and really move in, it’s just more difficult to deal with them later,” Apo said. In response to a Hawaii Supreme Court decision striking the City and County of Honolulu’s anti-camping law, the Honolulu City Council simply passed yet another anti-camping law in August 2008 to make it easier to move homeless campers out of public parks.
The ban on overnight sleeping has not worked – homeless individuals simply stay up at night and sleep during the day, making it even more difficult for them to find employment. Because tourism is so important to the economy of Honolulu, city officials feel that it is important to clear the major parks of homeless people: according to the Honolulu Advertiser, Council Member Charles Djou said, “Having it go on at such a prominent park is bad for the economy.”
The City Council seems particularly aggrieved at the sleeping habits of the homeless population: they have proposed bills making it a crime to sleep at a bus stop and have spent thousands of dollars retrofitting bus stops to discourage sleeping. In November 2008, the City and County of Honolulu replaced benches at bus stops with round concrete stools in response to complaints about homeless individuals sleeping at the stops. Street Roots, a street newspaper located in Portland, Oregon, reported that bus officials said that the problem is not new, just “more visible as more people ride the bus.” According to Street Roots, the city spent $11,000 on the seating initiative as of November 2008. The
Honolulu Advertiser reported that city employees offer help to displaced homeless people when benches are removed. Street Roots reported that advocates feel that the new initiative is part of a series of city policies designed to “push the homeless out of sight.”
