Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Gimme Shelter


Gov. Linda Lingle, along with State Comptroller Russ Saito, who also serves as the state’s homeless solutions team leader, beginning at noon today will dedicate two new homeless transitional shelters on Oahu’s Leeward Coast.

The two facilities -- Kumuhonua (formerly Building 36), a former military building at Kalaeloa, and Ulu Ke Kukui (formerly Villages of Ma‘ili) in Ma‘ili -- are the final shelters to be developed under an emergency proclamation Lingle declared to address health and safety issues due to so many people living in parks and beaches along Oahu’s Leeward Coast.

The two shelters to be dedicated have the capacity for about 450 people, in addition to the more than 1,500 people Lingle says have been served in other transitional shelters since 2006.

The University of Hawaii last month released its “Homeless Service Utilization Report,” a study that attempts to get a handle on the breadth of the homelessness problem on the islands and how best to address it.

3 comments:

  1. I've heard so many "rumors" about other states "dumping" their homeless people on Hawaii with one way tickets here... I'd love to read one substantiated report on it sometime.

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  2. We used to hear about the "Homeless Express" on the Mainland as well. The difference was they just had to move them by car or bus ticket across state lines. Moving folks to Hawaii would get rather pricey, I would think. The UH homeless study does some racial breakdowns but not where folks were from as much. I bet a lot of people come over to Hawaii as the land of sunshine and opportunity and then realize they just can't survive so well with the cost of living so high. unfortunately, their ticket was one-way and they can't afford to leave, either.

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  3. While I'm not "Homeless", I do understand that the cost of living has just gotten so out of hand on Oahu that it was literally driving people out of their places.

    *cough*
    My rent Quadrupled in a 1 year time due to the homeowner selling there house after nearly 40 years of renting it! The new owner immediately made minor improvements and decided they would jack the rent to what the market could handle.

    That was just one of my many reasons for deciding to leave Oahu after nine years working for the State.

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