For eight weeks, nearby residents have stared nervously at this throwback to a 1930s "Hooverville" that's sprouted off Farrington Highway next to the Wai'anae Boat Harbor.

Today marks the beginning of National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week — an effort by the National Coalition for the Homeless to focus attention on the problem around Thanksgiving. But folks in Wai'anae have already had their awareness elevated.

On Sept. 13 — after repeated complaints about a troublesome homeless population that for years had inhabited several acres of weedy underbrush between the boat harbor and Wai'anae High School — police waded in and swept out the interlopers.

Charmaine Ramos gathers laundry hanging out to dry in her tent built using wooden pallets and tarpaulins. She has lived in the camp since being evicted from underbrush near Wai'anae Boat Harbor. Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser

There they have remained — a visible reminder of one of Oahu's more vexing and tenacious problems. The village population varies. About 20 adult men and women, 10 children and more than a dozen dogs tough out an existence at the site.

Dwellers basically fend for themselves, although they are frequently fed, given clothes and watched over by area religious groups. They are also allowed to use HCAP restrooms.

Danette Rayford, who heads the Leeward District's HCAP office, said area legislators have held meetings about the camp. She says all sorts of ideas have been suggested. So far, nothing has happened.

Rayford said many of the homeless have lost their welfare payments, can't find work and are virtually destitute.

"Our intention was simply to get these people together so that someone or some agency could take them over," added James Manaku, HCAP volunteer and the program's Leeward District Council chairman.

Manaku said after rules banning drugs, drinking and fighting were enforced, many of the group's volatile elements drifted away. Those still there are relatively peaceful.

"We were trying to get them help," he said. "But, from September to today, nobody has come forward. So far there's been a lot of talk. But, as you can see, they're still here."

That bothers people like Victor Rapoza, who operates the Wai'anae Ice House next to the boat harbor office. Rapoza was among those who complained to police about homeless people occupying the wooded area behind his business in the Wai'anae Regional Park.

He calls the settlement an eyesore that gives Wai'anae a bad name and scares off tourists.

"Most of these people are not homeless," Rapoza said. "They're helpless by choice."

Rapoza believes the solution is for the city and county to take responsibility and place the homeless in a housing program away from the beaches. In return, and as a way to restore their self-esteem, the housing occupants could be required to do useful volunteer work, he said.

Shanty town residents know their presence annoys the community.

"They look at us like we're freaks, and blame us for every bad thing," said Charmaine Ramos, who was living in the bushes when the police sweep occurred, and has resided at the roadside camp ever since.

"They put us down and say we are shamed. Why? Shame is being scattered all over creation, and shame is for those guys looking down on us."

Still Ramos, who concedes she is homeless by choice, says she has been moved by acts of kindness from the community, such as last Wednesday, when members of the Ka Hana O Ke Akua United Church of Christ congregation brought in hot meals and soft drinks for everyone.

"We don't hold judgment," said Connie Tom, as she handed out trays of beef stew and rice. "It's not easy for these people."

Wai'anae police are acutely aware of the coast's ballooning homeless population, which one local homeless program put at 1,600 people in 2003 — a figure that included more than 300 under age 16.

Frustrated with chasing the same offenders from one park to another and issuing repeated citations, in February 2003 police in Wai'anae formulated a plan they hoped would stabilize the situation and break the cycle.

Working with a coalition of service providers, private citizens, governmental agency representatives and homeless people, months were spent hashing out the details.

At a mid-October community meeting last year the coalition presented townsfolk with the idea for Camp Hope, a "temporary homeless transitional living center," that would be on five acres of undeveloped land west of the boat harbor — the very spot flushed out by police eight weeks ago.

The idea behind Camp Hope was to assist people down on their luck and who have no place to live. The chronically homeless and those with mental, drug and alcohol problems would not be allowed. The camp, which would be supervised around the clock and would be invisible from Farrington Highway or area homes, would house about 35 homeless families in tents.

Trained professionals at the "100 percent clean and sober facility" would work with agencies and support groups to move Camp Hope residents back into the mainstream as quickly as possible.

Reaction to the plan was instant, adamant and vociferous:

A chorus of irate residents complained that such a "tent city" would reduce Wai'anae to "a homeless dumping ground," and transform it into "the homeless capital of Hawai'i."

Stanlyn Placencia, executive director of the Wai'anae Community Outreach and a driving force behind the coalition, was one of several people at the meeting who countered that unsupervised homeless people were already occupying the woods and weeds by the boat harbor and that ignoring the issue would only make matters worse.

"And, it got worse," Placencia said last week. "And now the community is in an even greater uproar because it's right in their face on Farrington Highway."

Placencia believes the community is now warming up to the idea of having a managed homeless transitional center in the underbrush. She said the coalition is working with city and state officials to implement the plan.

"A lot of people just want it out of sight and out of mind," added Evonne Vincent, who is also a member of the coalition. "That don't work."

But getting the homeless back into the woods wouldn't be easy even if the community did accept the notion. That's because once they were evicted, harbor master William Aila put in concrete barriers to block further access from the boat harbor.

Unless someone at the state Department of Land and Natural Resources orders him to take them out, the barriers will stay.

Aila — who agrees with the Camp Hope concept in principle but doubts that it could be enforced — says he sympathizes with the plight of the homeless. But his first responsibility is to his boat owners. And during the time the homeless lived in the brush, the boat harbor was subjected to theft, vandalism, illegal fishing, fights, and drunken, drugged and disorderly conduct, and even physical attacks, he said.

So for now, Wai'anae's homeless shanty town will stand as a disturbing monument to a problem that won't go away.

"There are a lot of people who are upset by the visual blight of these people out there by the road," Aila said. "But at least this way they're forced to look at it. And maybe something will get done to change it."