The City Council has let the perfect be the enemy of the good — the necessary, in fact — by walking away from the imperative to improve Waikiki’s rapidly decaying public spaces. It did so late last week by playing politics with a key enforcement provision aimed at deterring squatters amid the state’s most populous visitor destination.
In a bad decision, the Council’s Zoning and Planning Committee, chaired by Ikaika Anderson, on Thursday deferred indefinitely the passage of all the enforcement bills that would ban lying or sitting on sidewalks as well as public defecation and urination. The so-called "sit-lie" initiative started with Mayor Kirk Caldwell’s proposal, which would limit the target to Waikiki.
The Council, fearful that the homeless would be pushed to other communities, expanded the scope to islandwide crackdowns, despite the clear judicial record showing the more limited ban is far more likely to pass constitutional muster.
Ironically, it’s this same Council that now has decided it should do nothing at all. The reason, members said, was that the Caldwell administration has not yet concluded its arrangements to begin issuing housing vouchers to provide stable shelter for the most vulnerable of the homeless: the start of the long-stalled "Housing First" initiative.
What should have happened — and what still could happen — is enactment of the preferred measure, defining the sit-lie ban area as Waikiki only. The mayor rightly pointed out that emergency shelter capacity can accommodate the "chronically homeless" in this limited area, while wrinkles in the plan for more permanent housing are ironed out between now and October, when the vouchers are now expected.
Such action would have advanced the city’s plan to counter homelessness by signaling, at long last, that all in city leadership are serious about protecting public spaces for use by the general public.
Let’s be direct about this: The initiative is more likely to withstand legal challenge if it is limited, and if priorities must be set, it’s Waikiki that needs to be protected first. Let’s do something instead of nothing.
Pamela Witty-Oakland, city community services director, said the city had planned to begin the process with funds already available to house 10 homeless individuals, but those vouchers are delayed until state-funded support services can be secured. The state and city administrations must work together to accelerate this process.
Beyond that, the city will solicit proposals in August to run the larger city-funded program, meaning that the first batch of 100 vouchers can’t be issued until fall.
Advocates for the homeless who oppose the ban on public urination and defecation make the valid point that the city is woefully lacking in public bathrooms for the homeless. That should be addressed in the short term by extending hours of operation of beach park restrooms and placing portable toilets while more permanent facilities are being planned. But surely, being fine with people relieving themselves in full public view cannot be the new normal.
It’s ludicrous that some Council members — in a political reversal from a mere few weeks ago — now say they don’t want to pass sit-lie and urination-defecation bills before shelter and services are wholly available for the homeless. If they insist on an all-or-nothing prerequisite, nothing will get started.
The large-scale housing development, requiring the roughly $44 million in capital improvement funds, will take several years to spend. Do they intend to wait that long before beginning anything?
Honolulu has waited too long for its elected officials to move off the dime on this persistent problem. They need to get back to work at City Hall and get a bill passed.
