EDITORIAL
Helping homelessness needs creative thinking
Evicting the homeless from public places has to rank among police officers' least favorite jobs. You shuffle folks from park to park, or beach to beach, with no assurance that they'll ever get off the streets for good.
Technically, it's not illegal to be homeless, but everything associated with being homeless — camping without a permit, living in a vehicle, storing pets and possessions in public places — can result in a citation or arrest.
"We're the ones who are the bad guys because we're stuck with the enforcement," said Leeward district patrol officer Michael Hall at a recent sweep of Kalaeloa Park near Nimitz Beach, where scores of homeless people have settled in recent weeks, according to a report by Advertiser Leeward reporter Will Hoover.
It's true that a good portion of the homeless would benefit foremost by affordable housing. And it's shameful that there is not enough shelter space to accommodate a burgeoning population of homeless families.
Yet despite all the supposed concern for O'ahu's homeless, no one really wants them in his backyard and no one really has a long-term plan.
At least some cities are trying to address the problem. San Francisco has just implemented a Care Not Cash initiative for the city's 2,500 homeless people on welfare. The plan reduces their welfare checks in exchange for providing housing with counseling services.
Under the program, homeless people who are applying for welfare for the first time — or for the once-every-six-months appointment to renew welfare — will see their checks cut from the maximum of $410 to as little as $59.
In return, they will be offered a place to live. Whether they accept the offer or not, their checks will shrink. The city will offer the choice only if housing is available.
The costs of housing new Care Not Cash residents will be paid with the welfare money diverted away from homeless people's checks. That fund is expected to grow to more than $10 million.
Care Not Cash sounds complicated and expensive, but, then again, homelessness is a complex and expensive problem. At least San Francisco is taking a creative approach. While we needn't follow the Care Not Cash model, we should work on innovative ways to help the needy, rather than continue shuffling the homeless from one locale to the next.
