Posted on: Sunday, January 16, 2005

By Lee Cataluna
Advertiser Columnist

Gov. Linda Lingle, in speaking of a multiagency 10-year plan to end chronic homelessness in Hawai'i, said, "Having people who are homeless, on the street or in the shelter, goes against how we see ourselves."

How true.

We see Hawai'i as warm, welcoming, hospitable.

We see ourselves as compassionate, accepting, kind.

We see homeless people as a nuisance that us "good guys" shouldn't have to contend with, what with their disregard for cleanliness and the way they mess up parks and beaches and downtown doorways.

But our perceptions are much too self-serving and far from reality.

The Hawai'i Plan to End Chronic Homelessness, released to the public by Lingle this week, plainly identifies one of the top causes for homelessness as "family conflict."

That means that we don't get along with our own people sometimes, something Hawai'i people are loathe to admit.

It means that the folks on the street and in the parks and sleeping in cars are our 'ohana. They're not all disconnected Mainland transplants. They're people we know, people we're related to, people whose names are on the low, hidden branches of the family tree.

"Family conflict" is an umbrella term for things like divorce, domestic violence, alcoholism, drug use and mental illness.

It is also a way to describe what happens when money is tight, space is tight, resources are tight.

It's more comfortable for us to think of homelessness as a result of abstract issues like the economy, the tight rental market, crystal meth use. Of course, all those things play a part in family conflict as well.

According to a recent survey, 25 percent of Hawai'i's homeless people came from the Mainland. The vast majority are from here, of here.

Lynn Maunakea, executive director of the Institute for Human Services, Hawai'i's largest emergency shelter program, has seen people clinging to the edge of homelessness — people who have family here but exist on the perimeter.

Maybe they sleep in a car in the family driveway. Maybe they move from one aunty's house to another. Maybe they live with three families, 15 people in a tiny apartment and have to try every second to keep tempers from exploding.

"Things like that happen more often than we even see. It's almost like a scratch on the wall. If you pass that scratch, after a few times, you don't even see it anymore. I think we don't even consider those things after we get used to them. We get desensitized to them," Maunakea said.

How to deal with the complicated tangle of family conflicts that put people out on the streets?

The best solution, Maunakea said, is creating affordable permanent housing. People need a stable, decent place to go.

Lingle has promised to make tackling chronic homelessness a priority under her watch.

It should be a priority under our watch as well. "The homeless" aren't "those people" outside the circle. They're our people who fell outside the fold.

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.