http://www.civilbeat.com/topics/hawaii-homelessness/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/04/hawaii-one-way-flights-homeless_n_6101274.html
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/10/13/homeless-in-hawaiinewlegislation.html
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/11/03/3587685/hawaii-homeless-120-tickets/
Although we have finished our discussion of home and homelessness, this current event seems to tie that into our discussion of public space very well. In order to save time I will summarize the situation so you don't have to read all the articles I linked to above:
As you may know, Hawaii's economy is heavily based on tourism and people coming to see the beautiful scenery the islands have to offer. What you might not know is that Hawaii has a large homeless population. On Oahu there are more than 4,700 homeless and at least 2,200 on neighboring islands and most advocates believe that this number is under-reported. Although the homeless population is very large, a good portion of these people are homeless by choice.
In September the city of Honolulu introduced three bills that made it a misdemeanor to sit or lie on sidewalks in the tourist district of Waikiki, it also outlawed public urination/defecation island-wide. Many believe this is unconstitutional due to the "law of the splintered paddle" that was introduced to the Hawaii state constitution in 1797 stating "Let every elderly person, woman and child lie by the roadside in safety."
Hawaii's Institute for Human Services (IHS) has developed a $1.3 million plan to fight homelessness, part of this plan includes outreach to connect homeless individuals with shelter, employment and medical services but the plan also includes flying at least 120 homeless people back to the continental U.S.
Those who rely on the tourism based economy feel strongly about removing the homeless from the area, a member of the local business community says “We want to make sure that homeless people understand we’re not going to let them take over Waikiki’s public spaces.” Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell says, "It's time to declare a war on homelessness, we cannot let homelessness ruin our economy and take over our city."
This article was presented by my classmates in an Intercultural Communications class and it was discussed in the context of capitalism. After our discussions of home and homelessness and reading Mitchell's article I had a different perspective than many of my classmates. They were shocked by Hawaii's reaction and one individual said something like this would never/had never happened in America. However, I see striking similarities between this and the situation in Skid Row, Los Angeles (which my classmates did not know about). Some of them thought the proposed plan was a good idea. They cited that the homeless people need to be contributing to society if they are capable of working, they presumably would like a roof over their head, and that Hawaii's economy would not suffer.
I was personally upset by the plan that IHS proposed as well as the sit-lie law which makes it impossible to be homeless without breaking the law. Incarcerating homeless people, moving them away from tourist destinations, and giving them one-way tickets to the continental U.S. does not solve the problem. Furthermore, those homeless people who have chosen to live transient lifestyles certainly don't view their existence as a "problem" that needs fixing.
Individuals are being forced out of Honolulu's "public space" and being told that they don't have a right to be there while the visiting tourists are given priority. The public space is being sanitized of homeless people in order to maintain the ideal Hawaii that tourists envision. The Hawaii people envision does not consist of homeless people occupying the streets so the local governments will take every action necessary to keep the idea of Hawaii alive. It's unfortunate that when many people go on vacation they want to "experience another culture" and see what it's like, yet they remain in touristy areas where people perform in order to create their culture for visitors. Nobody wants to visit a Hawaii and spend money when the harsh reality is in their face and it isn't what they imagined.
This news solidified the end of public space for certain in my mind. The beaches and streets of Honolulu are in no way public space open to any and everyone. The local government, business owners and tourists have made it very clear who is supposed to be in the space and what type of actions and occupation are allowed in the space. Everyone is working to maintain the space in the way that tourists expect it to be; in a way that benefits privileged, wealthy tourists regardless of the fact that others are excluded from the public space.
Taylor,
ReplyDeleteThanks for bring back the issue on homelessness. I am beginning to see that public government’s reaction to the issue of homelessness is transient beyond borders. There seems to be a consistent ‘solution’ to solving homelessness. Much like Maria’s earlier blog post on Fort Lauderdale restriction on feeding activity in public space, public governance sees an immediate solution is to either crackdown on homeless people or the people who help them. This issue was also brought to light about 4 months ago in Malaysia’s capital, Kuala Lumpur. Our Federal Minister, release a statement banding soup kitchens within a 2-kilometre (slightly more than 1 mile) radius around the city center. These soup kitchens were mainly ran by non-governmental and non-profit organizations. Any soup kitchens found operating were subject to fines. He went on further to clarify his position stating the ban was to deter homelessness in Kuala Lumpur and discourage the poor from becoming ‘complacent’. The image of Malaysia was also cited as one of the reason much like Hawaii, to be seen to the visiting eyes as a clean and prestige city.
http://stream.aljazeera.com/story/201407072145-0023906
Of course there was a huge backlash, however to keep this short, there were several measures done later to rectify the fiasco but from what I have seen, there is still no true measure that tackles the very root of the problem. The public space still very much remain questionable because it is still govern by the same people who can decide when and how the public space can be used.
It’s interesting to me that regardless of the culture or location, homelessness always seems to become an issue of public appearance to the outside. Everywhere we see that governments may allow homeless people to exists, just not where outsiders can see them. When traveling in Peru this summer, my travel partner was relatively oblivious to the poverty that exists in the global south. We stayed in MiraFlores in Lima, Peru. This is a super touristy area with American style amenities everywhere. Just like in Hawaii, there was a lack of homelessness present in this tourist community. My travel partner said that I had exaggerated the poverty that exists in Peru, until we left that area of town. My travel partner was then able to see the mass poverty that exists almost everywhere else in Lima. It frustrates me that so many places treat homelessness as an image problem, rather than a societal problem. To conclude, and be quite honest, I have considered that if I was every homeless I would go to Hawaii and live on a beach. However, Hawaii doesn’t seem to appealing now.
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