The seaside pergolas where couples used to meet for romantic picnic lunches or sunset-watching have been taken over by homeless people and their grubby tents, flapping tarps, makeshift clotheslines, wandering dogs and collections of shopping carts and wood pallets.

On the rolling hills, where all those “Hawaii children happily sliding on cardboard” commercials have been shot over the years, the clusters of tents and tarps have popped up like a spreading infection. There’s a rickety portable toilet, the type meant for use during recovery from surgery, right out in the open. The places where someone has broken through to the innards of a light pole to steal electricity for their camp aren’t even hidden. An extension cord snakes from a pole, across the paved walkway, up the grassy hill and into a tent. No shame.

There is a kind of indignation that has grown through the ranks of Honolulu’s homeless. Many are not ashamed of the way they live or the choices they make. They claim space that isn’t theirs to take, then, when they’re told to move along, vow that they will be back.

There is also no shame among political leaders who dare to claim victories in the effort to end homelessness when all around them, plain as the noses on their faces, people live defiantly in filthy encampments in public parks and on sidewalks.

Meanwhile the governor and the mayor have the nerve to praise themselves for their successes in reducing homelessness.

Just this week Gov. David Ige highlighted the state’s “overall progress in addressing homelessness” while recognizing the first anniversary of the state’s Family Assessment Center, a converted warehouse in Kakaako just yards away from the first cluster of homeless tents.

“More than 90 percent of families who have stayed at the FAC and have left the facility over the past year, have been housed, or 35 families out of 38 families serviced,” the press release for the event stated. Yea for those families, but that’s a drop in the bucket. Just look around.

On the city side, in response to a highly critical audit of various homeless programs, Caldwell’s managing director talked about how proud the administration was of its many accomplishments on this issue and said the city’s work is having “a positive impact on communities across Oahu.”

Oh, come on. There are statistics on paper, and then there’s what Hawaii residents can see with their own eyes and smell with their own noses. Until the second measurements confirm the first set of numbers, nobody is going to believe your bragging or give you credit for fixing the problem.

No one gets to pat themselves on the back when hardworking local families no longer can take their kids to a place like Kakaako Waterfront Park without worrying about hep A or mean dogs or all other kinds of preventable human-generated dangers. No politician has yet earned bragging rights for effectively dealing with the homeless crisis when just steps away people are living in squalor.