The Honolulu Police Department’s stepped-up enforcement against petty crimes frequently committed by homeless people is a welcome element of what must be a comprehensive and sustained approach to address the causes of homelessness while simultaneously blunting its disastrous effects. We need leadership at both the city and state levels on this issue.
Law enforcement is but one aspect of a multipronged system that can succeed in the long term only by also increasing access to mental-health services, drug and alcohol treatment, and permanent housing.
Honolulu’s homeless population tops the nation for a city our size and has risen for the sixth straight year, especially among single individuals who are "unsheltered" — meaning existing on the streets, rather than in emergency or transitional shelters.
Of the 4,712 homeless people counted on Oahu, 1,633 of them were unsheltered, including 558 individuals who are chronically homeless. A growing subset are severely mentally ill and addicted to drugs or alcohol, their misery on full display in Waikiki, that beacon of "paradise" for the tourists who power Hawaii’s economy.
Given this discordant reality — the sight of homeless people sleeping on the sidewalk or defecating in the park fulfills no one’s tropical-island fantasy, least of all the people who are living this way — it was only a matter of time before Honolulu police felt compelled to act. City crews clearing sidewalks in line with the stored-property ordinance were not enough.
Police lack the most direct enforcement tools, given that Honolulu does not have laws prohibiting loitering, vagrancy or public intoxication. But there are laws against public drinking, disorderly conduct, aggressive panhandling near ATMs, obstructing sidewalks and being in public parks after hours.
Police can’t force homeless people into shelters, where they must abide by reasonable rules designed to foster safe and sanitary conditions. But officers can encourage people to go on their own, through strict enforcement of laws we do have on the books. Such interventions can improve the quality of life in neighborhoods where chronically homeless individuals congregate, and steer the down-and-out to agencies that can supply some of the help they need to rejoin mainstream society. Social-service outreach is a crucial part of this enforcement strategy, lest the homeless folks simply shift from street to street, park to park — one step ahead of the police.
Another risk is that officers will overreach, targeting only homeless people. Flawed enforcement would easily be challenged as unconstitutional. Police arresting people for public drunkenness, for example, must apply the statute uniformly; tourists acting up after too many mai tais might be cited every now and then.
HPD Chief Louis Kealoha emphasizes that these sweeps also uncover evidence of other criminality among homeless people, such as warrants for outstanding arrests. That’s a bonus, but he need not justify this overdue enforcement against minor infractions. Police are doing their jobs — the number of addled individuals in certain neighborhoods raise legitimate safety concerns and full community access to public places must be restored throughout the island.
That said, the police can only help so much, and their intervention comes at a very high cost to taxpayers. Moreover, many infractions are plainly related to the violators’ homelessness. It’s doubtful there would be so many people defecating in the bushes, for example, if Waikiki, Kakaako and Chinatown had more bathrooms open 24 hours a day. The time for arguing about whether providing such facilities will attract more homeless people is long past. They are here now. It is inhumane to have so few public facilities, just as it is wrong to nitpick funding for Housing First, which would put the chronically homeless in subsidized housing and follow up with health care and social services. The City Council should fund Mayor Kirk Caldwell’s full request for this needed program.
Moreover, lawmakers and Gov. Neil Abercrombie must bolster these efforts, perhaps by enacting a vagrancy law and certainly, by helping to fund Housing First.
Being poor is not a crime, and neither is being homeless. Police have an important role to play in keeping our city safe for everyone, but we as a community must recognize that the solution to chronic homelessness on Oahu remains supportive housing, not jail.
