It was 2 p.m. Monday, only hours before the 10 p.m. deadline that authorities had given Shina Gonzalez and other homeless people in "the Bush" section of Keaau Beach Park to pack up their belongings and leave for good.
A large tent that Gonzalez had put up remained in place. As she spoke with the Star-Advertiser, she looked sadly at the plants she’s cultivated in a little yard area outside her tent and wondered what she was going to do with the small hibiscus and cactus. She’s already given away a bunch of plants, and much of her furniture.
Gonzalez, 52, had lived at Lualualei Beach Park, also known as Sewers, until the city uprooted the homeless encampments there several years ago.
"When they kicked us out of Sewers, they threw us in the Bush because they said we were in the public view," Gonzalez said. "Now where do we go?"
City work crews backed by Honolulu police officers are scheduled this morning to clear out the last of up to 200 people who have been living on a 1-mile stretch of vegetated beachfront just northeast of the public portion of Keaau Beach Park. It is the last large homeless encampment on the Waianae Coast.
THE city has, going back a number of years, gradually been clearing beach parks on the coast, including Tracks Beach Park in Nanakuli and Maili Beach Park. When the city cleared the developed section of Keaau Beach Park 13 months ago, officials left the Bush area alone.
City spokeswoman Louise Kim McCoy said, however, that the city began talking to human services providers and planning for the clearing of the undeveloped area about six months ago. The service providers then began approaching the people living in the area at the beginning of February, McCoy said.
"This is not something that just happened in the last few weeks," McCoy said.
A "point in time" statewide homeless count issued annually by the state said there were 180 adults and 22 children living at Keaau in January, McCoy said.
As families and individuals were busily breaking down their encampments Monday, some were angry while others were philosophical. Some knew where they were heading; others did not.
Michele Long, 42, said that she, boyfriend Gary Quisano, 41, and their three young children, four dogs and two chickens are heading for an area near Pokai Bay and the Waianae Boat Harbor.
The family has been living in the Bush for about two years. They have tried living in several West Oahu shelters but have run into "conflicts." Often the shelters put a limit on pets or don’t allow them at all.
Besides, Long said, the family enjoys living on the beach. A school bus takes the two older children to Kamaile Academy, a public charter school in Waianae.
"No TV, none of that stuff," she said. "Just the beach and the animals. That’s all. That’s all we get."
QUISANO said he’s puzzled by where the government expects the Waianae homeless to go next.
"Where you like us move, downtown?"
A woman who would only identify herself as "Elle" said she is set to move into a Victory Outreach shelter in Waipahu where the only restriction, she said, is no illegal drugs. Elle said she’s been clean of all drugs, including marijuana, for several months now.
"I want to change," she said, surveying her encampment. "I’m going to be a better person. I was getting sick and tired of this."
Across Farrington Highway from the Bush, the nuns from Our Lady of Kea‘au have agreed to allow a dozen homeless people to establish a self-sustaining camp on a parcel within their 58-acre complex, which its website describes as "a Franciscan place of prayer, refuge and recreation."
Marianne Hatori, who has lived at the Bush for nearly seven years, and Paul Opunui, who has been at Keaau about a year, are among the lucky dozen.
The group is expected to stay drug-free, keep to a one-pet-per-person limit, say prayers and help establish a farm.
Hatori said that if the experiment is successful, the church might try to expand the program.
"I guess this is a trial phase," Opunui said.
Hatori said many former residents of the Bush are living in their cars or up in the mountains and intend to return once the city begins looking the other way again.
