Tree house has to go, state says
By Walter Wright
Advertiser Staff Writer
The state is asking a homeless man who built a three-level tree house on the site of planned government buildings to come down from the big banyan behind the Tong Fat Building so they can cut it down.
Cory Lum • The Honolulu Advertiser
But Tony Friday, 30, a sometime truck driver and carpenter who grew up in the neighborhood and always considered the tree to be his hideout, isn't sure he wants to go.
Tony Friday, who says he's living a "Robinson Crusoe life," works on a bike in front of his tree house behind the Tong Fat Building on King Street, across from 'A'ala Park.
Building the tree house, Friday says, has helped keep him off drugs. And it offers a Honolulu Harbor view, a little living room and a wild chicken that lays a clutch of eggs near the trunk.
Friday is one of a handful of itinerants living in tents and other makeshift dwellings on the vacant lot behind the building at 407 N. King St., across from 'A'ala Park.
They represent a common challenge for officials working on Hawai'i's problem with the homeless — how to care for individuals who may not want their help and who seem, for the moment, to be getting by.
Laura E. Thielen, project coordinator for the Kalihi-Palama Health Center's Health Care for the Homeless Project, says there's a certain irony in the fact that Friday and a few others are providing housing, of a sort, for themselves on a state property destined to be developed to provide housing.
But she had high praise for the Housing and Community Development Corp. of Hawai'i, the State Department of Land and Natural Resources and the Honolulu Police Department, for allowing outreach workers to try to help Friday and others move on before the land is cleared.
Darryl Young, spokesman for the housing corporation, said the agency plans to remove Friday's tree and another big banyan soon, but is still seeking bids. The agency even checked with the head of The Outdoor Circle, Mary Steiner, who said the banyans aren't worth saving, but should be replaced by other trees to provide greenery and shade in the neighborhood.
The housing corporation and the state Department of Business, Economic Development & Tourism are planning to build a $34.7 million residential complex for the elderly on the site, and a 139-stall parking structure on state land near the banyan trees 'ewa of the old railway terminal.
The 21-story residential tower would have 156 units connected to a two-story community services building for adult daycare programs, offices and a recreation deck.
Cory Lum • The Honolulu Advertiser
The buildings, the state says, would improve property that has been occupied by an "underutilized and deteriorating and vacant structure that presents an image of neglect and blight."
Friday, who stands 6 feet 4 and weighs 220 pounds, says he feels safest in his banyan tree house.
Lynne Matusow, chairwoman of the Downtown Neighborhood Board, said the elderly housing would be close to shopping, entertainment and medical facilities.
Those are among the reasons Tony Friday likes the spot, too, he said.
The tree house, which Friday built during the past four months using pallets, plastic tarps and other recycled materials scavenged in the area, has become a problem for Yu Ting Leung, the manager of the Tong Fat Building and a house behind it that also contains boarding rooms for tenants.
Leung succeeded in getting all the agencies involved to hold a sort of summit meeting Oct. 3, but he's still waiting for results.
Leung said an abandoned car on state land next to his building first began to attract itinerants who may have believed they had found a jurisdictional no-man's land where no one would bother them.
"I called the state about the car and they said they didn't have the money, and I called the city and they said they won't tow it because it's on state property," Leung said.
Homeless people filled that vacuum, disassembling the car, removing wheels and windshields to sell at parts houses, Friday said.
But Leung said people also began sneaking into his building to use the toilets and showers, and others used the vacant land for their toilet instead, threatening health problems. Friday, who calls himself "a kind of Renaissance man," says he doesn't want to move into the Institute for Human Services, "because they kind of line up like cattle in there." He was living with an uncle on Vineyard Street until four months ago. At 6 feet 4, and 220 pounds, he says he feels less at risk than many people who live on or near the streets of Iwilei. Still, he shows a 3-inch knife wound on the inside of his right forearm that hasn't closed properly because he treated it by wrapping it with duct tape.
Friday said he actually feels safest when he climbs the 10-foot ladder into his home every night and — with an elaborately engineered pulley system — raises the ladder up behind him.
"I'm the Man Friday," he said, "and I'm living a Robinson Crusoe life."
Reach Walter Wright at wwright@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8054.
