A City Council bill that would outlaw lying down on a public sidewalk may be a well-intentioned effort to get street people into homeless shelters, but it contains so many enforcement and constitutional problems — including lack of buy-in from agencies that would implement it, and serious doubts that it will even work — that the measure should be shelved for now.
Clearly, chronic street people need the services of homeless shelters, where they have access to a range of social services, including mental-health care and drug and alcohol treatment. Bill 59 targets this population by punishing violators with a $50 fine per infraction — unless the person can "provide to the citing or arresting officer evidence that on the date of the citation or arrest he or she attempted to obtain overnight accommodations from a homeless shelter … but was turned down."
Exceptions would be made for those suffering from a medical emergency, anyone engaged in "expressive" activity, children under 6 riding in baby carriages, public utility workers and others.
The measure is moving to a second reading despite serious concerns raised by the Honolulu Police Department, which said it may be construed as criminalizing homelessness.
The city’s Department of Facility Maintenance also raised constitutional concerns, and wondered whether limited resources would be diverted from the enforcement of existing laws.
The city’s Department of Community Services raised the fiscal and other challenges inherent in creating and maintaining a registry of all shelter vacancies on any given night.
Social justice advocates decry the bill as illegal and inhumane.
The City Council has kept the spotlight on Oahu’s growing homeless population and on potential ways to ensure that public facilities — including sidewalks — are available for use by everyone. However, rather than moving ahead with Bill 59, the city government should focus on enforcing existing ordinances aimed at making Oahu’s public places accessible to all; these include regular sweeps of homeless encampments throughout Honolulu and the removal of individuals’ property.
Those measures were implemented after significant dialogue and planning among police, prosecutors, advocates for the homeless, tourist-industry representa- tives and other stakeholders. Surely any proposal that deals not with tents and sleeping bags, but with human beings, merits the same intensive scrutiny.
As worded now, Bill 59 risks discriminating against a single class of people, diverting police from more urgent crimes and siphoning off city resources better spent on the enforcement and administration of existing laws.
With as many as 2,350 people estimated to be living on Oahu’s streets and beaches, there’s no denying the urgency — moral and economic — in getting more of this population into shelters, where they can receive the assistance they need to eventually help themselves.
A significant percentage of these so-called "street people" spend most of their time in Waikiki, providing a stark contrast to the glittering version of paradise on which our tourism economy depends. So it’s no surprise that Councilman Stanley Chang, who represents that district, would continually seek ways to address problems related to homelessness.
His Bill 59 is a flawed response, however, and should not proceed.
