More than 100 people who were swept out of the Kakaako homeless encampment this month have simply moved next door and set up tents and tarps on state land in Kewalo Basin Park, Point Panic Beach Park and Kakaako Waterfront Park — the area neighboring the University of Hawaii Medical School.
Those who migrated just blocks from the encampment — which had come to represent Oahu’s inability to deal with its ongoing homeless problem — will be left alone for now because state sheriff’s deputies are not enforcing park rules that ban overnight camping until a plan can be formulated to handle the new influx of homeless campers.
“We are not doing enforcement of the Kakaako Waterfront Park hours until a coordinated relocation plan is in place for the individuals and families residing in the park,” said Toni Schwartz, spokeswoman for the Hawaii Department of Public Safety, which oversees the sheriff’s department.
Gov. David Ige said more than half of the 293 people who were counted during an August census of the Kakaako encampment — or 158 people — ended up in homeless shelters or permanent housing.
A census at Kewalo Basin, Point Panic and Kakaako Waterfront parks conducted Wednesday by Waikiki Health and the Kalihi-Palama Health Center counted 130 people including at least seven families living there, said Scott Morishige, the state’s homeless coordinator.
State officials including the Hawaii Community Development Authority, which owns the land, have been meeting this week trying to figure out what to do about the burgeoning homeless populations that grew as a city cleanup crew Oct. 14 finished clearing out the Kakaako encampment that at one point wound around the UH medical school and Hawaii Children’s Discovery Center.
The dismantling of the encampment began Sept. 8 after police, fire and paramedic calls to the area spiked and in the aftermath of a June 29 attack on state Rep. Tom Brower (D, Waikiki-Ala Moana-Kakaako) as he photographed conditions at the intersection of Ohe and Olomehani streets.
The census conducted Wednesday at the three beach parks included Rose Pu‘u, whose 14-year-old son has been charged with instigating the attack on Brower.
Pu‘u told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Thursday that her son is attending Farrington High School but has pending court appearances related to the attack on Brower. Pu‘u declined to say when her son’s next court date is or specify the reason for his appearance.
Alvaro Olivares, 55, had been living in the Kakaako encampment for two years and moved his tent and tarps to the Olomehani Street side of Kakaako Waterfront Park after city crews moved in with two garbage trucks.
“They told us to move on,” Olivares said. “But we didn’t have any place to go.”
Ted Otaguro of Aiea had been staying away from the Hawaii Children’s Discovery Center because of the presence of hundreds of homeless people. But he and his wife, Gerri, showed up Thursday with their 19-month-old granddaughter, Arya.
As he looked around at dozens of newly erected tents and tarps around Kakaako Waterfront Park, Otaguro said the more than monthlong cleanup of the Kakaako encampment solved nothing.
“The city and the state need to do something,” he said.
“They literally just spread them around,” said Asoiva Ugaitafa, who has befriended some of the newly relocated homeless people and showed up Thursday to help clean up their campsite. “They didn’t solve anything. They need to tap into the churches and the private sector to help out.”
Vito Talo, 46, moved his tents onto the grass next to the UH Cancer Center with his three daughters — ages 6, 12 and 18 — after they were kicked out of Ohe Street. Talo blamed his presence in Kakaako Waterfront Park on “da sweep.”
Asked whether the sweeps solved any problems, Talo said, “If they did, no one bothered to tell us. There is no place for us to go.”
Dr. Jerris Hedges, dean of UH’s John A. Burns School of Medicine and interim director of the UH Cancer Center, called the state’s efforts to solve homelessness “greatly appreciated.”
“We know that they are working hard to respond to this latest development in Kakaako and understand that these things take time,” Hedges said. “We are confident that it will be appropriately addressed.”
As he does every morning, Harry Leopoldino, 24, methodically folded up the tent that he shares in the park with his girlfriend, Valerie Tumbaga, under the shade of a tree.
The park has gotten louder with so many new people moving in “creating nonsense,” Leopoldino said.
Leopoldino knows that it’s now a matter of time before political pressure builds on the new encampments and he and his girlfriend will have to find somewhere else to live in somebody else’s neighborhood.
“I’m not here to cause trouble,” he said, “but there’ll be more and more sweeps.”
Brower, the state lawmaker who was assaulted, said Kakaako needed to be swept “because it was becoming very dangerous. It was a hub for crime.”
He maintains that no one should be surprised that the homeless occupants just moved somewhere else.
“It was to be expected because we’ve helped to create this pattern where government cleans up one area just to have people return or go next door,” Brower said. “This shouldn’t be seen as a surprise.”
Mayor Kirk Caldwell has often said that he spends more time on homelessness than even on the city’s $6.57 billion rail project. And Brower believes that homelessness will be a “hot topic” for the upcoming legislative session.
But Brower pointed out that cleaning up Kakaako required no new state laws. “It doesn’t take legislation to fix the homeless problem,” he said. “We need practical solutions.”
City, state and federal officials said the cleanup of the Kakaako encampment was a lengthy undertaking, in part, because the area shares jurisdiction and ownership by city, state, the HCDA and private landowners.
Now, with the HCDA as the sole landowner in the areas of the new encampments, Morishige said, “we’re using an approach that’s informed by data.”
“HCDA is really continuing to have dialogue with the (social service) providers and get more information on the population before making plans to enforce the existing park rules,” Morishige said. “We need data on the population to allow us to target the right resources to the individuals who are there.”
An emergency proclamation that Ige announced Oct. 16 adds money to help some of the chronically homeless who are living in the encampments, Morishige said.
