Ala Moana homeless tell police their side
By James Gonser
Advertiser Urban Honolulu Writer
About 100 people attended a community forum at McCoy Pavilion in Ala Moana Park on Friday to hear police Maj. Michael Tucker answer questions about homeless issues in the popular beach park.
Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser
This was not a meeting of concerned citizens worried about the growing numbers of homeless living in the park. It was the homeless themselves who wanted to ask about their rights in a society that pushes them to the fringes and treats them with little respect.
Tim Cook, left, talks about a lack of jobs for the homeless at a community forum held Friday at McCoy Pavilion in Ala Moana Park. About 100 homeless people attended the meeting with district police commander Maj. Michael Tucker.
Holding signs saying "end police harassment," "jobs not charity" and "housing, a human right," homeless people stepped up to the microphone one after another to complain to Tucker about how police officers treat people in the park who have nowhere else to go.
"When did it become a crime to be homeless?" said a woman who, like others, did not want to be identified because of her situation.
"A lot of homeless are local people — working, drug-free and homeless. Police harass us, and they need to know how it feels to be homeless," said another person who lives in the park.
"They treat us like dirt," shouted a voice from the audience.
Tucker, out of uniform for the occasion, is the District 1 police commander covering the area from Ala Moana Park to Kalihi, including Iwilei and Chinatown, where many of the island's homeless live. Tucker remained calm during the barrage of questions and answered everything asked of him.
"This confirms my understanding of how difficult the problem (of homelessness) is, and makes us aware that in doing our job we need to be more sympathetic to the condition these people are in," Tucker said. "But nobody, according to the law, has a right to live in the park. You may disagree with that, but it is the law."
An estimated 150 to 200 people do live in the park. Police say it is a public place and people cannot be forced to leave as long as they don't break any laws. City parks workers regularly push the homeless out while they clean the park and power-wash bathrooms. They also remove possessions left in the trees and on benches.
Police ticket campers, confiscate stolen bicycles and make arrests for illegal drug and alcohol use.
The meeting, the first attempt to bring together homeless people in the park to discuss their concerns, was organized by Eileen Joyce, publisher of Street Beat, a newsletter for the "houseless."
Police sometimes take photos of people in the park, a practice several in the audience criticized.
"The courts tell us they want evidence," Tucker said. "You have to realize that if you are in a public place, you have a lower expectation of privacy. But just like we have video cameras out in Chinatown, the fact that you are out in public, you are open to having your picture taken."
Tim Cook, who recently moved from the park to an apartment, said he had been issued 12 tickets for camping in the park. He said the law defines camping as using a temporary shelter such a hut or tent.
"All I had on was my clothes," Cook said. "Where is the temporary shelter? We should at least have the right to sleep."
Charlotte Gill, who lives in the park, said nobody wakes up one day and says, "I'm going to be homeless."
"There are lovely, brilliant people out here," Gill said. "Everybody falls on hard times in their life. Maybe people have money, but nobody has the right to look down on us. We are all in this together."
Tucker said it is the police department's responsibility to protect the entire community, of which the homeless are a small part.
"I also have to protect the community that comes to me and says, 'I cannot use the bathroom at 2 a.m. because people are sleeping in there. I cannot use the park bench because somebody is sleeping on it. I cannot get the picnic area I have a permit for because the homeless are there with their blue tarps,'" he said.
"I have to try to protect everybody, and in that effort sometimes I cannot protect anybody. But it is your elected officials that set the priority as far as funding is concerned."
Reach James Gonser at jgonser@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-2431.
