The American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii has filed for a preliminary injunction against homeless sweeps in Honolulu.
Honolulu’s use of homeless sweeps constitutes cruel or unusual punishment under Hawaii’s constitution and should therefore cease immediately via a court order, according to an ACLU legal motion filed Friday.
The motion for a preliminary injunction seeks immediate relief from irreparable harm the ACLU claims is caused by the city’s targeted enforcement actions against what the complaint calls “houseless” people, its preferred term.
Scheduled to be heard by the court on Oct. 4, the motion adds to a lawsuit ACLU filed against the city in July challenging enforcement actions that it says violate the rights of the homeless under the state’s constitution. The initial lawsuit, filed by the ACLU and the civil rights law firm of Goldstein, Borgen, Dardarian & Ho, names five homeless plaintiffs but is also aimed at protecting Oahu’s more than 2,300 estimated unsheltered homeless.
“The motion for an injunction that we just filed is part of the lawsuit,” Jongwook “Wookie” Kim, legal director for ACLU Hawaii, said.
He added that the city Monday had yet to respond to his organization’s complaint. “Theoretically, we will get the city’s formal response to our lawsuit in the next week or two.”
On Monday the city offered a brief response regarding ACLU’s Friday filing.
“The city was served with the preliminary injunction on Friday,” Scott Humber, the mayor’s communications director, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser via email. “Corporation Counsel is currently evaluating the case.”
Filed in 1st Circuit Court on July 26, the ACLU’s lawsuit alleges that in the absence of sufficient shelter space, enforcement of “anti-houseless” laws — which include public sleeping bans, park closure rules, displacement laws, sit-lie bans and restrictions on keeping personal belongings and animals — criminalizes what the organization calls “acts of survival that houseless people have no choice but to perform in public spaces.”
The lawsuit itself asks for no monetary award.
Meantime, the motion filed Friday asserts that the city’s use of sweeps constitutes cruel or unusual punishment and asks the court to order the city to immediately stop targeted enforcement actions — including sweeps, citations and arrests — while the merits of the case are being litigated.
The ACLU’s motion is supported by written testimony from all five named plaintiffs in the lawsuit and statements from other homeless people and service providers who contend that irreparable harm is done to the homeless during and in the aftermath of the sweeps and other enforcement actions, the ACLU says.
For her part, Gina Mahelona, lead plaintiff in the motion, described the experience of being targeted by the city’s sweeps, citations and arrests.
“It is very stressful to live every day bracing for something bad to happen. The city has arrested me numerous times since I’ve been houseless,” Mahelona said in a written statement. “Most of the time, it was because the police had a warrant for me based on a previous citation related to my houseless status. I can recall many times I was arrested when I was going about my life: cooking, spending time with my dogs, or even sleeping.
“I believe I was being targeted and profiled because of my houseless status,” she said.
A 51-year-old woman of Native Hawaiian and Puerto Rican descent who was born and raised in Kaneohe, Mahelona became homeless after she lost her place in subsidized housing when her mother, whom she cared for, died eight years ago, the ACLU says.
Mahelona, they add, currently lives with her boyfriend and three dogs under a bridge in Kaimuki.
“This is not a good place to live: there is nowhere to shower or use the bathroom, and we have to sleep and cook within a few feet of a dirty waterway that sometimes floods,” she said. “But (the city) basically forced us into this location through near-constant harassment when we tried to live elsewhere.”
According to Kim, the ACLU’s lawsuit comes after years of talks with the city to find better solutions to deal with the homeless situation failed.
He added that the lawsuit also followed publication July 24 of a Star-Advertiser report detailing how the city tripled its workforce that clears homeless encampments across Oahu every day and night — Monday through Friday — with some cleanups on weekends, creating further problems for those living unsheltered day to day on the island.
“Our filing of this lawsuit did not come out of nowhere,” Kim said.
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Honolulu Star-Advertiser staff writer Dan Nakaso contributed to this report.
