By Michael Brestovansky Hawaii Tribune-Herald | Aug. 2, 2024
A downtown Hilo homeless shelter was closed and relocated elsewhere in town this week, to the surprise of some of its new neighbors.
Hawaii County on July 5 erected a temporary shelter on Ponahawai Street in advance of an impending audit by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers of a nearby storm drain. To comply with the audit, the county needed to move a group of homeless people who were camping in the drain.
“There wasn’t a lot of notice for the audit,” said county Housing Administrator Susan Kunz. “The quickest move was for us to set up a shelter right next to the canal, since it was on county land. We knew we’d be there only for a limited time.”
On Wednesday that time ran out. The county dismantled the Ponahawai shelter and relocated its 15 remaining occupants to a new shelter on Kuawa Street — a short road connecting Manono Street and Mamalahoa Highway just mauka of Kamehameha Avenue.
The relocation was performed via a partnership between the county and nonprofits including Hope Services Hawaii, Project Vision Hawaii, the Neighborhood Place of Puna, Going Home Hawaii and Salvation Army Hawaii.
Kunz, who was at the site of the new encampment Wednesday, said the county had set itself an administrative deadline to dismantle the Ponahawai camp by the end of July. With the International Va‘a Federation’s World Sprints to be held beginning Aug. 13, she said the Department of Parks and Recreation needs to prepare the Ponahawai site for an influx of visitors.
According to a news release from the mayor’s office, the Ponahawai site has been restored to its original condition and is serving as an extension of the Wailoa Soccer Fields under the management of Parks and Rec.
The new camp, on a private lot adjacent to the Extra Space Storage facility, was secured through an arrangement with the owner, who Kunz said lives on Maui and “wants to give back to the community.” The terms of that arrangement allow the county to use the site as a shelter through the end of December.
“We’re hoping we won’t need it for that long,” Kunz said.
The occupants of the new shelter — named the “Ponahawai Short-Term Shelter at Kuawa” on a sign — will only be the remaining residents from the previous camp.
Kunz said the downtown Hilo site began with about 40 former storm drain occupants, but that number has diminished. Some left the camp on their own, others broke rules and were made to leave, and still others were connected with homeless services.
In what Kunz called “a bit of tough love,” residency at the Kuawa camp comes with a condition: All residents must register for assistance.
“If you’re coming here, then you want to be helped,” Kunz said. “If you don’t want to be helped, there’s nothing we can do.”
Kunz said a major challenge at the Ponahawai site was not the difficulty of keeping residents in it, but in keeping out visitors. The Kuawa site already had a chain-link fence around it before the camp was established, and will have 24/7 security to keep the peace.