Focus put on homeless problem

By James Gonser
Advertiser Urban Honolulu Writer

National Hunger and Homeless Awareness Week begins today and will be observed on O'ahu with opportunities for residents to provide comments on the homeless situation here, learn what's being done to end homelessness in Hawai'i and to meet homeless people and service providers.

Volunteer Nolan Canadilla passes out doughnuts in a free food program for the homeless at St. Andrews Cathedral. Events this week will aim to draw the community into helping find solutions for homelessness. Advertiser library photo

The $10 fee will include a special T-shirt made for the event. People who want to take part may call in advance or just show up at Magic Island that morning. Nonperishable food will be collected for the Hawai'i Foodbank.

Rebecca Anderson, chairwoman for the events, said the focus of this year's events is bringing the community into the effort to provide for homeless people.

"It is a chance to interact and realize a lot of the homeless people are families, people who work, and regular people. We really need to start bringing in the community if we are actually going to succeed in ending homelessness," Anderson said. "We are going to have to have community involvement."

A community forum on homelessness will be held at the State Capitol from 8:30 a.m. to 11:15 a.m. Wednesday, and several shelters will offer open houses that day. A map of the shelters will be handed out at the forum.

"We will be presenting our 10-year plan to end homelessness and asking for community feedback on the plan," Anderson said. "We are asking for community members to become involved with it and gain some ownership with the plan."

Anderson said the tour of service providers for the homeless is to let people have a firsthand experience of what it is like to live in a shelter.

"This is to allow community members to actually see the places and actually get some interest in volunteering or donating," she said. "Give them some hands-on experience with what the service providers are doing."

A homeless service providers' forum will be held from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday at the Capitol.

Nationally, between 700,000 and 800,000 people are homeless on any given night, with about 200,000 people classified as chronically homeless. Over the course of a year between 2.5 million and 3.5 million people will experience homelessness in this country.

State figures show that 12,091 people sought aid during fiscal 2003, up nearly 7 percent from 11,275 people the previous year. Of those, 7,944 were on O'ahu, 1,916 on Maui, 1,651 on the Big Island and 580 on Kaua'i.

George Harris, the city missionary for Central Union Church, gathers volunteers every week to provide a church service and serve a free meal for homeless people at Ala Moana Beach Park. Harris said as the homeless move into new communities, residents are being forced to confront the issue.

"Individuals and communities are going to have to decide that they can't let it be somebody else's problem and they are going to have to demand some kind of answer from themselves," Harris said. "People ignore it or think the police or a shelter can take care of it. No one of those entities can solve it by themselves. It needs to be a communitywide commitment to find some alternatives."

The week's events are sponsored by Partners In Care, a group of several homeless service providers.

For more information, call Mary Scott-Lau at 259-9049.

Reach James Gonser at jgonser@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-2431.

Correction: A community forum on homelessness will be held at the State Capitol auditorium from 8:30 to 11:15 a.m. on Wednesday. A forum for service providers, which is not open to the public, will be held from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Tuesday in the Capitol. A previous version of this story contained incorrect dates. Also, Nolan Canadilla's name was misspelled in the photo caption.