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So if you haven’t already heard, the Governor has been launching pieces of an initiative to deal with homelessness in Hawaii. Any effort is commendable, but I find a problem with the current rhetoric surrounding his efforts. I’ve often mentioned that dealing with homelessness will require dealing with it in very human terms and not through systems and bureaucratic thinking.

But so far his additional comments only foster the same inhuman, and ultimately unrealistic, perspectives that already exist. Worse, I think they inflame the idea in people’s minds that homeless people are completely opportunistic, and enjoy scavenging for food and shelter. Suddenly his recent words are casting me, and those like me, into a role as pariahs.

When he recently announced his 9 Point Plan there were several comments he made about regular citizens not feeding the homeless. Essentially he said that providing meals for homeless would encourage more people into the homeless population. As if people will see a homeless life as preferable because there’s free food involved.

To be honest I’m highly offended because I feel like I’m being treated like a pigeon in some eradication effort: “Watch out! If you feed them they’ll band together and breed uncontrollably! And we all know how much a blight those flying rats are on our nice, cultured city!” If it really worked that way this would have been my story arc:

“I can barely remember the day that I hatched, but I recall it was a sunny day as my moist eyes struggled to open in the new blaze of light. My folks took good care of me as a young squab: They chewed my food for me, and picked the mites off my little head. But the idyllic life came to an end and I was on my own. I was young and I was hungry.

At first I made some friends with another pigeon and a sketchy couple of sparrows. They taught me how to dumpster dive. It wasn’t glamorous once your feathers got all matted down with grease, but hey, those McDonald’s leftovers were heavenly. That was until we heard from a stumpy-footed dove that there was a place where we could get all the free food we wanted; a veritable Shangri-la in the middle of the park.

So we followed him to where these bipeds were sprinkling small specks of something all over the grass. I followed the other birds in, and before I knew it I was in the rhythm of the mob, pecking, cooing, and jostling with the different birds all around me. Within a few minutes we had devoured everything and there were no more specks to be found. The bipeds left and the different flocks disbanded, leaving a few insistent doves still searching the tufts of grass for any missed nuggets.

But guess what? The bipeds came back the next day. And the next, and just kept on coming. We settled into that part of the park and repeated this bacchanalian feast each day. It was sheer bliss and we had no more worries. So we caroused and for kicks we would park our rear ends over the power lines and relieve ourselves trying to make patterns on the metal boxes with wheels and any unsuspecting biped passing by. Life was good and there wasn’t anything that was going to make us quit.

Except maybe some lame Governor’s initiative…”

So yes, if the Governor is to be believed, this little fictitious tale is a rendering of how more people will end up un-homed or homeless. He even uses criminal language of “aiding and abetting” for those well intentioned bipeds. And somehow he thinks this 9-point action plan would counter all this. Whoopee!

Well I’ve thought about it a bit and I have 9 points below to offer up. If these were in the forefront of their minds while enacting any plan, I might have a measure of confidence in their quest to be helpful. In my simple opinion, a home is (not necessarily in order of importance):

1. Sanctuary- a place of refuge and retreat
2. Safety- a state of feeling secure and protected
3. Boundary- something that buffers the outer world as well as the inner
4. Memory- a place to store and build a life
5. Nostalgia- a needing to return to a source, and the fulfillment of that need
6. Dignity- an innate right as a human being, flawed or not
7. Independence- a chance to be free within and amongst the rest of the world
8. Control- the chance to decide whether the toilet seat stays up or goes down
9. A state of mind- an inner recognition that can’t be simply enforced through dictate

I’m sure there can be many variations, but if the proposed council can somehow begin to address these effectively then I’d have reason to believe. And perhaps other un-homed might as well. And at the same time if the Governor, in his capacity for wisdom and compassion, could drop his rhetoric that places homeless amongst the lower ranks of “scum and villainy” (to quote Obi-wan Kenobi for a moment), then maybe he’d build trust among these constituents. I’m sure at least some of them vote.

In the meantime, we pigeons will do what we can to survive and hope for the best.

Previous posts in this series:

• Beginnings
• On the Road — But Not in Hawaii
• Cash Flow
• How Do You Spot An “Un-homed?”
• Nap Time On The Road
• A Funny Thing Happened…
• A Governor’s Decision
• Trying to Stay Clean
• Pity or Compassion
• Best Friends Forever… or For a While
• Going with the Flow
• Milestones
• Anger Paralysis
• Timing Is Everything
• It’s All Relative
• Riding Heartbreak
• The Courage Needed
• Bartering Along
• Getting Swept Away… Almost
• Neglect
• Small Measures of Success
• The Interior Life
• I Miss My Bed
• My Closet Has a Flat Tire
• Hopes and Dreams
• Homeless Are People, Too
• Full Monty or Not?
• Back Seat Office
• Staying Connected
• Those Small Indignities
• Putting Your Life in Storage
• One Step Forward, One Step Back
• Exciting New Career Opportunities
• End of the Day
• Solutions Wanted
• When to Hold On, Let Go?
• Location, location, location
• Range of Motion
• Food More Than Sustenance
• Figuring It All Out Someday
• Solitude
• The Good, The Bad
• From The Heart
• Does Anyone Really See Me?
• Keeping Perspective
• Showers at the Natatorium
• Achieving Homelessness