Homelessness in Honolulu

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In 2007, I moved to Hawaii in the United States. While it was meant to be a two week visit, it turned into a six month stay. I was surprised to find that even this tropical paradise has its share of social issues, including homelessness.

I had travelled to Honolulu with an old friend I had met in Guangzhou in 2003. I had met up with him in Seattle a couple of weeks earlier, and we decided to visit his home in Waikiki.

Well, as it turned out, there was another old friend from Texas also living there, a guy who loved to party. We spent the days visiting tourist sites, swimming at the beaches, visiting the bars and checking out the karaoke scene.

I found a nice little bar in Waikiki called the Honolulu Tavern, where they had karaoke almost every night. I had finished my work with Big Issue and Senator Bartlett, so was in no hurry to get back to Australia.

I took a furnished two bedroom apartment in Waikiki, downstairs from the writers on the TV show “Lost”, and found out they loved to party as well. I even got to watch them filming, and met some of the stars of the show.

Then on a barbecue on Kapiolani Beach, also in Waikiki, I met some of the homeless who were living in the park, and got involved in the homelessness campaign in Honolulu.

The guys I met were military veterans, and it turned out these guys made up about 15% of the homeless in Honolulu, where the total homeless population was estimated at almost 10,000 people.

I joined up with a local homelessness group who were trying to address the problem, and shared some of my ideas from working with the homeless in Brisbane. Unfortunately, such groups received a lot of resistance from the government and the police.

About that time, the Hawaiian government came up with what they thought was a brilliant plan to deal with the homeless: ship them back to family on the mainland.

The plan was to give every homeless person in Hawaii, all 15,000 of them, a one way plane ticket to live with their family and friends in mainland states.

There were several obvious flaws to this plan. One was that about 45% of the homeless population had actually been born and spent all their lives in Hawaii, and had no family on the mainland. Of the remainder, most did not have family on the mainland that wanted to take them in.

The idea seemed to be to move the problem somewhere else, but it didn’t really take off.

Homelessness shelters in Honolulu only had enough beds for about 1,500 people, far short of having any realistic impact, and the Hawaiian government weren’t real keen on building more shelters.

In the eyes of the Hawaiian government, these people were an eyesore, and homelessness was criminalised in an appalling assault of their human rights. Many slept in the parks adjoining the beaches, and joined in with tourists and locals at the barbecues.

For my own part, I found they were quite easy to get along with. All they wanted was something to eat and drink, and I never had any problem with them.

On my early morning runs and swims at the local beaches, I saw police walking along the beaches waking them up and moving them on. Again, this mentality of keeping them out of sight of the tourists – out of sight, out of mind.

The Hawaiian government did very little to address the homelessness problem, preferring to imprison them or ship them off to the mainland rather than actually helping them.

This was the dark side of paradise that very few ever see – an entire state abandoning is own citizens, many of whom had served their country in war.

It was quite different to Seattle, where the city council had set up camps for the homeless, and didn’t arrest them just becauise they were having a difficult time.

From latest reports, though, the number of homeless in Honolulu has now actually decreased to an estimated 4,000 people, and the current government seemed to take steps to address the situation because of the COVID pandemic.

The focus seems to be on families with children, but the Hawaiian government hopefully increases its efforts, and realises that all the homeless are worth assisting.

Craig Hill is a Brisbane-based Social Justice Campaigner, Writer, Teacher and Business Consultant. He has campaigned for social justice in Australia, promoted human rights in China and worked with the homeless in Honolulu. He holds a Graduate Certificate in Business, a Graduate Certificate in Education and a degree in Management. He is also the General Manager of The Australian Business and Leadership School.

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