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For any long-term solution to homelessness to work, two things are needed: permanent supportive homes for the houseless and Hawaii residents’ acknowledgement that homelessness is a serious, ongoing problem that needs all of us to help solve.

In addition, Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi says many homeless need immediate medical care to stabilize their suffering from substance abuse problems and mental illnesses as well as other serious medical diseases such as heart failure and diabetes.

We tend to avert our eyes from the homeless. Disassociate, think they are “other,” not us

But it is probably safe to say that many families in Hawaii have at least one relative who might be sleeping on the street if not for family intervention.

I am talking about those close to us with serious mental health problems and drug and alcohol addiction that rob them of the opportunity to lead normal lives. 

They suffer with disabilities such as untreated bipolar illness, schizophrenia or methamphetamine addiction that make them unemployable, sometimes for life.

One of my relatives fits that category. Only the love and care of his family keeps him safe from an unhealthy and dangerous life of living on the edge of a sidewalk or bouncing in and out of shelters.

Blangiardi said during a recent news conference that he plans to take 1,000 people off the streets within the year.

He told me Monday that as part of his stepped-up enforcements, the city’s CORE program will be taking people to new Medical Respite Centers to be set up in many neighborhoods in Oahu like the sites it and at Leahi Hospital in Kaimuki.

CORE is the cityʻs Crisis Outreach Response and Engagement Progam that uses refurbished ambulances to transport troubled homeless to care before the police arrest them.

Of the sweeps, the mayor says, “We will not just be picking people off the streets and saying ‘get the hell out of here.’ We are not going to be doing that.”

“Most of the homeless are very sick. They need care,” he said.

Taking a thousand people off the streets in a year and getting them to stop sleeping in public places seems an impossible goal, but it’s a better strategy than leaving them there unwell and untreated.

The Numbers Increase And Conditions Worsen

The problem with so much of the care for the homeless on Oahu up until now, including the city’s efforts, is its temporary nature: clinic stays without needed follow-up, tiny homes never intended for long-term living, sweeps that clear public space but only for a while.

There has to be permanent supportive housing for our homeless that features continuing social services that some people with disabilities will need for the rest of their lives.

The latest federal tally revealed the number of people homeless on Oahu —now nearly 4,500 —  has nearly doubled in the last 10 years.

And, it is not just that the numbers are increasing, the homeless today are worse off — most of them sleeping in their cars, on the sidewalks, on the slopes of Diamond Head, in storm drains, on beaches and in parks, when a decade ago, the majority were living in shelters with at least a temporary roof over their heads.

Nobody wants the homeless in their backyards but they are already here.

Oahu residents increasingly are coming face to face with sidewalk sleepers when they take their dogs out for early morning walks or when they get panhandled by homeless youth in Waikiki or drive by a tired old women sleeping on dirty towels by a bus stop. The tourism industry fears the unsettling picture the street sleepers paint of “paradise.”

Unless there is a big change to focus on permanent rather than temporary solutions, advocates say homelessness here seems destined to increase.

The latest figure of a nearly 12 percent increase in homelessness on Oahu from 2023 comes from the federally required done by volunteers and social service agencies who span out in towns across the country each January to count people without permanent dwellings.

Officials acknowledge the tally is an undercount, but say it at least gives an idea of trends.

Get Past ‘Not In My Backyard’

Blangiardi and the rest of the country got a green light to go ahead with more frequent homeless sweeps after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that it’s okay to arrest people for sleeping outdoors.

Six of the nine justices that ban sleeping outdoors in public places. Associate Justice Neal Gorsuch, who wrote the majority opinion, said it did not violate the Constitution’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. He added it did not criminalize only homeless people, but everyone who sleeps in public spaces.

Blangiardi said Monday the city’s focus on finding housing for homeless has been to get federal Section 8 housing vouchers for affordable rentals and to work with private developers to build more workforce housing to keep people from becoming homeless.

The city is also working with the state to build more kauhale homeless villages in neighborhoods all over the island.

In each neighborhood we can help by identifying one place where it would be okay with us for homeless to come to receive services and find permanent housing.

Nobody wants the homeless in their backyards but they are already here. In each neighborhood we can help by identifying one place where it would be okay with us for homeless to come to receive services and live.

The permanent supportive housing could be in underused government buildings or built on land the state already owns that is situated on the edge, not the center, of residential neighborhoods.

In my Kaimuki-Diamond Head neighborhood that would be the Leahi Hospital site, a 16-acre area that was formerly a tuberculosis treatment facility that opened in 1903 and now is partially used by the state as a skilled nursing and intermediate care facility.

This is where on June 12 the city called Leahi Behavioral and Medical Respite facility to provide immediate health care to homeless individuals who are without insurance but in immediate need of care.

With state involvement, more of the state-owned land surrounding the main Leahi hospital building could be used as an expansion of what the city is already trying to do: bring help to the homeless in the areas where they are already living.

It could stand as our neighborhood’s contribution to helping solve the larger problem.

The mayor said he was “holding his breath” waiting for Kaimuki neighbors’ outrage when the city opened the medical respite center for homeless at Leahi, but it didn’t happen.

I imagine every neighborhood has a place where homeless medical treatment facilities and permanent supportive housing could be built without greatly impacting the surrounding areas.

In addressing homelessness, we need to get past “not in my backyard,” and instead ask, “where in my backyard can we help?”