Posted on: Friday, February 15, 2002

Editorial
Cleanup must not ignore homeless needs

Honolulu ranks No. 10 among the "meanest" cities in the nation toward the poor and homeless, according to the Washington-based National Coalition for the Homeless and the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty.

Now any urban explorer knows that loitering and panhandling is mild in Honolulu compared to, say, New York City and San Francisco, which are among the survey's top- three meanest cities. So we're puzzled as to why Mayor Jeremy Harris is emulating Rudolph Giuliani and getting tough on the homeless at this most inopportune time.

It all started with the recent re-opening of A'ala Park on the outskirts of Chinatown, a mecca for the homeless, partly because of its proximity to shelters, soup kitchens and welfare services, as well as seedier attractions.

Of course, one can understand that after paying $2.7 million for the park's facelift, the city would want to deter the return of drug dealers and prostitutes. But the city's clearly gone overboard by removing public benches from the Fort Street Mall, and requiring organizations that distribute food to the hungry to apply for city permits. That gives the city leverage to cite and fine those who don't have a permit, and essentially bureaucratizes a charitable act.

So what happened to all the aloha that we feel at Sunset on the Beach? In fact, one of the heartwarming aspects of that program is that tourists, local folks and homeless people all watch the movies together. How would it look if after the film, the police only evicted the homeless from the beach and allowed everyone else to linger?

According to state figures, Hawai'i's homeless population has wavered between 12,000 and 13,000 in the last seven years. But that number is expected to soar because of the economic fallout of 9/11. Meanwhile, homeless shelters are filling up, and if you move people from one public location, they'll find another. What they won't do is disappear.

So we suggest that if the city wants to clean up downtown, be humane about it and recognize that this problem cannot be solved by shuffling it around.