Homelessness in Hawaii

Hawaii's Homelessness Epidemic & Lemanski's Gated Communities and Land Invasions

Michelle Anastasia

Lemanski's article brought my thoughts close back to home to my native island of Oahu, Hawaii. Hawaii is victim to one of the largest homeless populations and crisis' in the U.S. Oahu faces the highest rate of homelessness in the nation. Hawaii's homeless situation has become one of the top challenges facing state and county governments. Residents and visitors complain to officials about homeless camps in parks and beaches, and homeless persons walking streets, scouring trash cans and dumpsters where they also frequent stores and malls looking for handouts, money, clothes, and food. 

Homelessness is a government issue, a business issue, public health issue, a public-safety issue, a civil liberties issue and a in regards to Social Geographies, a social-justice issue. No comprehensive approach has been used to alleviate this large scale issue. 

As Lemanski stated, " Desperation drivers families to invade land. It is not a choice such, but in most instances a response to unbearable living conditions, the expenses of renting, and insecure tenure in friends and families homes." (6)
Lemanski, Charlotte, and Sophie Oldfield. 2009. "The parallel claims of gated communities and land invasion in a Southern city: polarized state responses." Environment and Planning A 41:634-648.

His statement holds true for Hawaii's homeless population. Where due to sky rocketing prices of housing, and unemployment rates as well as lack of jobs the homeless population has had no other choice than to populate public parks and beaches creating small towns and homeless encampments. 

Timothy Schuler a local reporter from Hawaii stated in his article that, "a homeless crisis is actually an affordability crisis. For the past decade or more, the cost of housing has risen faster than the median wage. The fair market rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Honolulu in 2016 was $1,985. Although reasons for homelessness are complex, in Hawaii a lot of people are homeless “because the cost of living is just too high,” Kurisu says. “For the life of me, I don’t know how people afford paying rent.” Because of the cost of shipping, building costs in Hawaii are also higher than in many states, and securing financing for affordable housing developments can be about as easy as a homeless family securing a $700,000 mortgage."https://nextcity.org/features/view/hawaii-duane-kurisu-homelessness-crisis-kahauiki-village 

Lemanski interviews an individual that has very parallel thoughts to the perpetuation of homelessness due to lack of financial opportunity, which is exactly what many if not all of the homeless individuals residing in Hawaii experience. ``I never was able to settle down properly because I don't have a job so I don't have money. I moved here with my five children [ages 23, 20, 25, 11, and 8] where I stayed with my wife and my parents. We had no cash so it was hard to find a place to live. I can't pay rent. I had to move from one place to another to another to another because I can't afford any type of rent'' (P, 8ste Laan, August 2006) (6) Lemanski, Charlotte, and Sophie Oldfield. 2009. "The parallel claims of gated communities and land invasion in a Southern city: polarized state responses." Environment and Planning A 41:634-648.

The richer population of Hawaii struggle with this epidemic as they move into gated communities with worry and fear from the homeless population and their personal security. "Although most homeowners in a gated community have no prior links to the area, they have purchased the land on which their property resides and thus within a capitalist system are supreme as a homeowner. ``People pay a lot to live here and have a right to be protected'' (A J, 24 March 2004). " (7). This statement is a clear identifier for the individuals that pay to be separated from the outside threats that homeless individuals may perpetuate inside communities. My parents live in a gate community similiar to the one Lemanski speaks of for the same reason he suggests.  The level of crime outside these gated communities provides a drastic different and insight into how the homeless population and housed population live with one another.