Mayor after Honolulu mayor has tackled the Sisyphean task of reducing the homelessness problem, manifested in unsightly and unhealthy tent encampments crowding city streets.

Invariably, for lack of better options, they have resorted to forceful measures: clearing encampments from sidewalks and other public areas, disposing of mountains of accumulated stuff and forcing those living there to move along.

In 2012, Peter Carlisle employed a single crew and then-new Stored Property and Sidewalk Nuisance ordinances to clear sidewalks. Kirk Caldwell introduced “compassionate disruption,” which combined frequent sweeps with offers of social services. And now Rick Blangiardi, who once dismissed “compassionate disruption” as a failure — “This approach merely moves homeless individuals from park to park and street to street,” he said in 2020 — has tripled the city’s work crews that clear the encampments.

The city now dispatches two crews to clean up selected areas of urban Honolulu from 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, and a third crew that focuses on Waikiki from midnight to 8:30 a.m.

Unfortunately, this kind of response remains necessary. People cannot simply live on the street, building encampments whenever and wherever they choose, in public spaces unsuited for habitation. The sites lack basic sanitation and safety services. They are unhealthy and potentially dangerous to the inhabitants and the rest of the community.

There’s also the lessons of bitter experience. Years back, large entrenched encampments in Kakaako Gateway parks turned a public resource into a no-go zone: a young mother attacked by dogs outside the Children’s Discovery Center, a lawmaker beaten up, bushes and sidewalks used as bathrooms.

The problem, then and now, has been a lack of viable alternatives. The hard realities of homelessness in Honolulu — extreme economic inequity in one of the most expensive real estate markets in the country — defy simple solutions. There simply aren’t enough adequate shelters, truly affordable housing, or services to help all of the more than 2,000 people living on the street on any given day.

Also, the homeless are citizens, too, and have their rights. One is the right to survive. State and federal courts have recognized that imposing criminal penalties on the homeless for seeking the basic necessities of living — food, clothing, shelter, sleep — in public places, when appropriate shelter is not available, violates constitutional protections against excessive fines and cruel and unusual punishment.

That’s an argument used by the ACLU of Hawaii Foundation, which last week filed a class-action lawsuit in Oahu Circuit Court on behalf of homeless — they prefer the term “houseless” — individuals rousted by government sweeps. The plaintiffs want the sweeps to stop and the laws undergirding them to be declared unconstitutional.

“Through a combination of ordinances and a campaign of targeted enforcement and harassment, the city punishes houseless people for engaging in universal and unavoidable acts of survival in public spaces, even when they lack any realistic option to live indoors,” the lawsuit argued.

But, government has an obligation to keep public spaces safe and hygienic — for everyone. The city needs to balance the rights of the homeless with the need to enforce its laws. That means more alternatives for shelter, clearer notice to those who will be moved, and respect for private property (that’s a constitutional right, too).

In recent years, the state and city have improved their efforts, building kauhale (tiny homes), providing medical care and temporary shelter in the urban core, and expanding social services outreach. It’s hoped that Gov. Josh Green’s recent emergency order streamlining affordable-home building will help. And certainly, those who need assistance should be willing to accept it when offered — even if it’s not exactly what they want — in a good-faith effort to give up the street life.