A week ago, more than 500 people signed up to look at a place from which government has been averting its gaze. The homeless encampment adjacent to the Waianae Small Boat Harbor drew crowds of visitors to see a village of tents that has sprouted, put down roots, and is now into its second decade.
The result is it’s become a community. And while it remains a less-than-optimal setting for the raising of children, who really deserve a more physically protected haven to call home, neither does it deserve the “sweep” treatment.
Further, there is some merit to the idea that “Pu‘uhonua o Waianae” could adapt some attributes found at another organically founded community. There are distinct differences that must be noted, though, between the Waianae residents led by resident Twinkle Borge, and the community founded by Native Hawaiian sovereignty leader Dennis “Bumpy” Kanahele nearly a quarter-century ago in Waimanalo.
Pu‘uhonua o Waimanalo grew up 24 years ago on a parcel of land the state leased to Kanahele’s group for a 55-year term. It was a deal struck by the state after about 300 sovereignty activists had occupied Makapuu Beach Park.
This was a group that believed in its right to a permanent claim on land, on the basis that Native Hawaiians asserted a claim to all Hawaiian national and crown lands that were ceded to the United States in what they saw as an illegal annexation. They were bonded to that land, and to one another, by a political-cultural affinity and by choice, more than by need.
In Waianae, by contrast, many of the residents share a Native Hawaiian affinity but are driven together by socio-economic forces, by their homelessness through various circumstances. Like many encampments, this begins with a safety-in-numbers impulse to stick together.
But this pu‘uhonua (refuge) persisted longer than most, and, directed by Borge and other veteran residents, it now numbers around 200 people. Rules have been developed to stabilize daily routines — especially those involving the children, who have escorts to take them to school.
This is positive, but the lack of more formal supervision showed. The state Department of Land and Natural Resources, which oversees the harbor, noted vandalism and trash piling up. Sanitation problems had environmental impacts as well, threatening a colony of rare shrimp found in shoreline ponds.
Clearly, the state needs to provide more oversight of the situation, but — just as plainly — sweeping the community would be unwise. If the hope is to transition these people to permanent housing, as it should be, a sweep would scatter the campers, likely beyond the reach of social service providers who could help achieve that.
Meanwhile, Borge has been working with Kanahele, with the objective of replicating his sociopolitical experiment in Waianae.
While the state would need to find a different site — the current shoreline camp is too sensitive and in conflict with legitimate harbor uses — nonprofit incorporation, which Borge has apparently obtained, makes some sense. That new entity could enter into a lease and be a vessel enabling a more stable community to collect dweller fees, grants or other resources that could support its sanitation, security and social-service needs.
Residents here should be enlisted in its upkeep, through whatever modest accommodation fee they can afford and sweat equity otherwise. Costs should be kept to the basics of sanitation and security — these would still be their tents, not modular structures.
Pu‘uhonua o Waianae has developed its own self-governance system, and although the state must keep tabs on things, there’s no need to overhaul that immediately. These people have created this community and should be afforded some time to chart their course to better living conditions, and to do so without vacating the premises for daily cleaning. Its purpose is more long-term than a conventional emergency shelter, such as Kakaako’s Next Step shelter. Still, it should not become as permanent and self-directed as Kanahele’s sovereignty settlement in Waimanalo.
Neither is this a model that necessarily will work as a “safe zone” template. Other encampments simply have not demonstrated the same measure of stability or communal status. This Waianae village is really a one-off situation, if not a unique one — a form of transitional housing, but without providing the house.
State lawmakers had contemplated simply exempting this community from criminal trespass prosecution, through House Bill Opens in a new tab2754 Opens in a new tab. That, fortunately, was shelved.
Pu‘uhonua o Waianae has served a purpose with measured success, but allowing the state to simply look the other way was decidedly the wrong impulse. A collaborative approach is what’s needed now: some support from the state, but also a show of personal responsibility from the campers who gave birth to this village to begin with.
