Kailua is hardly the center of Oahu’s homelessness problem, but almost any outing around town brings disturbing scenes.

I was rolling my wheelchair from the doctor’s office to the drugstore to fill a prescription when I came upon a man in clothes that had nearly rotted off him sleeping on the sidewalk up against Walgreens.

He’d been there for some time, judging from his profuse stream of sickly green urine flowing across the sidewalk to the street.

I had no idea what to do to help. The city provides little guidance for these situations, and surely police patrol cars had driven by and seen him. Not wanting to roll through his urine, I turned around and circled back around the building to the entrance.

Another time, I was waiting in the car when I saw an elderly homeless man pass in obvious pain, walking slowly and pushing a small shopping cart with his belongings.

I was struck by a couple of frayed rolls of toilet paper in his cart. He wanted to maintain some measure of dignity and hygiene when he relieved himself in public places for lack of available restrooms. I could think of no help to offer except a nod and a few dollars.

Then there was the guy sitting on a walkway bench committing a lewd act with one hand while extending the other for a handout.

Intermediate school-age girls were coming behind me, and I gave him sharp words before turning to warn them. I intended to call police, but he was gone by the time I returned.

Such scenes have become part of the landscape wherever we live, at once heartbreaking, infuriating and perplexing.

Sometimes we act as if the homeless were getting away with something, but nobody of sound mind would choose this existence. It’s hard living beyond words, strips you of respect, ages you in dog years and portends an early grave.

These people have mostly run out of choices because of economic hardship, little family support, mental illness or addiction.

The problem worsens despite good efforts by the state and city to increase options for shelter and services. There are continually more homeless year-over-year — up 12% in the past year — and unsheltered homeless have doubled in the past decade.

It won’t be solved with “tough talk” about where they can’t be without providing for where they can be — and will go. It’s fundamental physics that everybody has to be somewhere; fail to plan for this and you’re just moving the problem around.

It won’t be solved by word games changing the name to “houseless” from “homeless,” or misguided attempts to make it a civil right to live in squalor on public property.

It can only be solved by a massive commitment of will, resources and rejecting NIMBYism.

It means getting at the roots that keep growing more homelessness.

The Lahaina fire showed how a lot of emergency housing can be provided quickly when there’s urgency.

We must make the lives and well-being of social disaster victims as important as those of natural disasters. The community fallout of letting it go untreated is as great in either case.

Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com.