Final-Term Paper

“American Homelessness: The Silent Crisis”


Part III Analysis and Recommendation

The face of homelessness has become a very real part of Hawaii’s community. We see them daily as we walk past those who are destitute, lying on sidewalks in stupors, the “bag lady” pushing her cart across Beretania Street, those sleeping in cars and under Nimitz bridges and Hotel Street alleys, families in tents in Ma’ili Beach or Kapi’olani Park. Nowhere is the homeless situation more dire and widespread than on the Wai’anae Coast. Here, quite simply, as reported by Honolulu Advertiser’s Rob Perez in his series on Homeless on the Wai’anae Coast, the main factor for the homelessness is the “area’s rapidly rising rents in the face of a diminishing number of affordable rentals.…the average monthly rent for a house has jumped 90 percent.” This resulted in a surge of people migrating to the only place available: beach parks.

Homelessness in America has a different face. No longer is it viewed as a “personal problem” or “bad choices” – it could affect you and I. We are all just a few steps away from it. A loss of a job for a few months is all it could take. issue. Many people in America felt that the increase in homelessness was society’s failure to provide for those unable to compete for jobs and resources. Homelessness continues to be a problem in most cities in our nation and the problem is not going to disappear.

Certainly the federal and state governments need to work collectively to come up with creative solutions to very affordable, low-income housing, now. The State of Hawaii must pass legislation to limit real estate purchases from outside of the state to deflate the price of housing here rather than wait for another situation whereby we allowed a foreign country to buy up land at inflated prices, consequently, forcing local residents out of the residential home buying arena. We all, as community members need to put pressure – the way Mitch Snyder did – on our government leaders to create more jobs and provide training by bringing in industries from out of state. We should focus more on agriculture with new kinds of crops and energy conservation. If scholarships and job training do exist for these last two items, advertise heavily on their availability. Lastly, businesses need to be more community-minded, step down from finance and throw themselves into improving the community, i.e. Robin Campaniano’s recent step down from Farmer’s Insurance to join the Omidyar’s Ulupono Initiative.
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A poignant definition comes from an expert in the field of study of homelessness. It states:

“Homeless means more than not having a place to sleep. Being homeless means having no place to save the things that connect you to your past, losing all contact with friend and family, uprooting your children from school. It means suffering the frustration and degradation of living hand to mouth, depending on generosity of strangers or efficiency of a government agency for your survival, for your children’s survival.”(Hombs, 1990).