By MICHAEL BRESTOVANSKY Hawaii Tribune-Herald | Sunday, February 4, 2024, 12:05 a.m.
Kelsey Walling/Tribune-Herald — A makeshift homeless camp is set up Tuesday along the wall of the drainage canal near the intersection of Kilauea Avenue and Ponahawai in Hilo.Homeless individuals could begin congregating in Hawaii County-authorized “Safe Spaces” in Hilo and Kailua-Kona under a new housing initiative.
In late January, the county carried out a sweep of a homeless encampment at Russell Carroll Mo‘oheau County Park, with dozens of homeless individuals displaced and forced to seek shelter elsewhere.
The sweep highlighted both the overwhelming problem of homelessness on Hawaii Island as well as the difficulties of dealing with the problem. In particular, where can a homeless person safely stay if shelters are full and parks are off-limits?
Mayor Mitch Roth told the Tribune-Herald on Wednesday that the Safe Spaces initiative is potentially an answer to that question.
“We’re looking at places where we can safely allow our homeless people to stay,” Roth said.
In a statement, county Housing Administrator Susan Kunz said the Safe Spaces could be “temporary or more permanent in nature to provide a place where persons experiencing homelessness can gather and not be asked to move or relocate because they are violating park rules or any other county or state law or rule.”
Last year, the American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii threatened legal action against the county if it continued to evict homeless people from parks without providing adequate shelter space. The letter, written by ACLU of Hawaii’s legal director Wookie Kim, specifically referred to a “safe space where houseless community members can exist without being subject — every single day and every single second — to county enforcement actions.”
Roth said the project is not a response to the ACLU letter, comparing it to Gov. Josh Green’s “kauhale” project, which creates semi-permanent villages of tiny homes to provide shelter for homeless people. However, Roth said the county is considering different forms for the Safe Spaces: “It could be just a space for people to put out tents, with a vinyl fence around it,” he said.
Roth said several sites are being considered for the Spaces in Hilo and Kailua-Kona, highlighting in particular a possible Hilo site adjacent to a Salvation Army facility. The Salvation Army did not respond to requests for clarification on which specific facility is being considered.
Another site under consideration is county-owned land across from the Hawaii Police Department station on Kapiolani Street in Hilo, but that site could be rejected because of potential flooding issues — according to Kunz, the site currently is being cleared by the Department of Public Works as part of its due diligence work.
In any case, Kunz said in her statement potential sites could include vacant land or buildings and parking lots that the county or its partners could quickly develop into shelter sites.
Those partners — which include the Salvation Army, among others — also could be in charge of managing the sites. Roth said that the potential site near Salvation Army in Hilo would have rules set and enforced by the nonprofit.
Roth said the county “will be working with our nonprofits,” to help conduct outreach among the homeless and educate them about the initiative, but Kunz emphasized in her statement that nobody would be required to relocate to a Safe Space. Service providers also will regularly visit the Spaces in order to help clients navigate toward permanent housing, Kunz added.
Kunz stated that no time frame for determining suitable sites has been established, nor have any funding sources for the project.
Hilo Councilwoman Jenn Kagiwada acknowledged the project could be contentious, but added the homelessness issue is too vast to solve without bold measures.
“I know that nobody wants homeless shelters in their neighborhoods … but this is a problem where everybody might have to make sacrifices,” Kagiwada said. “Homelessness is a situation with no easy fixes.”
Kagiwada said she supports the initiative in tandem with county efforts to build or enable more affordable housing.
“There is no one silver bullet to solve homelessness,” Roth said. “With this, we might make a dent, but there’s other solutions we’ll have to employ, and more work maybe to be done at other levels of government.”
Meanwhile, a statement from HOPE Services Hawaii CEO Brandee Menino was also supportive of the measure — the nonprofit had previously been critical of the county’s homeless sweep in January.
“Every time we learn that unhoused individuals are asked to move and move along, we have asked where ‘can’ they go if they can’t be there,” Menino said in her statement. “We offer shelter. We manage 7 shelters in Hilo, Kona and Pahoa with 168 emergency shelter beds. On any given night there’s at least 700 unhoused individuals. So when shelter spaces are all full up, where can they go? We’re grateful the county is looking for additional safe spaces where they can go.”
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com