The Biggest Problem with Hawaii's Homeless Problem (a local's perspective)

it's not really anywhere to sit so this looks like a pretty good spot I feel like I'm in elementary school but oh okay I guess that's what I have to do so as homelessness been getting better in Hawaii that's something that I've recently asked myself and I'm not quite sure I'm not sure if our strategy is effective and maybe there's other things that we can do and so that's what I want to talk about in this video I know that it's a very sensitive topic but whether you're having to walk off the sidewalk to avoid the tents or you just don't go to certain places we've all been impacted by homelessness whether you currently live here or have visited it's pretty hard to ignore and when we talk about homelessness it's often this huge multi-faceted complex issue that requires a comprehensive or holistic strategy or solution to solve in Hawaii specifically we often hear The Narrative of we need more affordable housing and we need to find ways to lower the cost of living with those two being the primary reasons why end up homeless and while I do think that those are contributing factors oftentimes we don't talk about what seems to me the biggest cause or at least one of the root causes of homelessness that I personally see which is substance abuse and so I want to talk about what I see today just as someone who is living in Hawaii someone who grew up here and is currently raising my family because when it comes to the issue of substance abuse and homelessness it seems like we don't talk about it or we don't like to talk about it and I'm not quite sure why because maybe we're scared to talk about it or we're very uncomfortable to talk about it but I'm pretty sure that people talk about it amongst friends and family and maybe they throw a little side remark here or there but sniper marks aside let's talk about it [Music] foreign first I want to mention that what I'm talking about is purely observational I know that there's the 2023 Oahu point in time count which they go out and do a voluntary survey of the homeless population here but I don't really put much into that just because it's a voluntary survey and I don't really think you can use that as a measuring tool for whether the homeless situation has gone up or down in fact I wish they would just ask people how do you feel about homelessness do you feel like the situation has gotten a lot better because trust me Hawaii people today's gonna tell you second I know that homelessness is again a very sensitive topic to discuss I mean we're talking about people because whether you're living in a mansion in Kahala or you're living on the streets in Chinatown you're still a person and a person should be treated with dignity and respect so when it comes to the homelessness issue here in Hawaii I think it's more of a substance abuse issue of course related to that is mental health issues but really we're talking about substance abuse issues I don't know why we don't put more emphasis on that in our discussion in that narrative on homelessness here a lot of the attention goes towards affordable housing and cost of living but not necessarily substance abuse and I think that we should acknowledge that a little bit more because when you see more so on the street again just from Pure observation that seems to be a major factor now I do recognize that there are homeless individuals out there who are trying who because the cost of living because of certain circumstances they find themselves on the streets and that they're doing the best that they can to make it work and then of course you have communities like the one out in Waianae Who as a community they've figured out what system works best for them but I think the homeless individuals that most people are concerned with and maybe disproportionately have an impact on the general public at Large yeah are the ones who suffer from substance abuse addiction and these are the people that we're scared to see that when we see them we're genuinely afraid these are the ones that are passed out on the sidewalk or screaming at the top of their lungs across the street and many of us don't interact or have to deal with these individuals on a daily basis just whenever we happen to be out but I know that there are a lot of people like security guards or store clerks whose job is to deal with a lot of these people every single day and so these are the individuals that I think need the most help these individuals who are homeless and are struggling with substance abuse addiction and I don't think that affordable housing or lowering the cost of living is going to have that much of an impact on their lives again I'm just speaking as someone who lives in Honolulu there are just certain places that you don't go you just don't go there and it's sad really because they're nice places when I was growing up we used to be able to go to Stadium Park after school maybe hang out and it was pretty decent it was a nice park we could go there but now I probably wouldn't go there and it just takes one drive by or one experience and you're like okay this is pretty sketchy let's get out of here and let me just say as a dad of two young kids that's pretty hard because I want to take them to Parks I want to go out and have fun I want them to burn off all their energy but when we don't feel safe when it doesn't feel like the park is accessible that's hard and in fact it seems like that space is now wasted not that it's wasted space but that the park isn't being utilized till its fullest potential the thing is when we visited Japan they were homeless there as well we saw them sort of under the overpasses or even in some of the train stations but they kept to themselves they had a little cardboard boxes and signs and that was it they didn't bother us and they were just quiet but in Hawaii it's very different and I think the biggest factor that contributes to that Stark difference is the substance abuse addiction and so I kind of wonder about the solutions of more affordable housing to solve homelessness or let's find ways to lower the cost of living to solve homelessness because those seem like pretty big problems that not just homeless individuals struggle with I mean regular everyday people are struggling to find affordable housing and regular everyday people are struggling to keep up with the cost of living and these issues just seem to be so huge that if we were to actually solve them we wouldn't just benefit homeless individuals we'd be benefiting everyone here more housing for everyone that's affordable that people can actually buy for lowering the cost of living we're talking about big economic changes you're talking about making things cheaper in the store or or and or I should say increasing salaries and those are things that are really out of I think people's control and so sometimes I think we keep highlighting and chasing after that wonderful solution for homelessness in Hawaii with these huge ideas and these huge aspirations and because they're so huge it just are we ever going to attain them and again I appreciate the efforts for trying to provide more housing and trying to lower the cost of living and I completely understand the idea or the strategy of trying to find permanent housing for homeless individuals so that once they have a stable home then you can introduce more services to them but again I wonder how fast and how effective is that going to be at large because to me I think addressing that substance abuse issue or at least highlighting it or talking about it more maybe we can get some of these people the help that they need I think it would have a beneficial impact on any homeless related crimes and more importantly I think it would make people feel like things are getting done that places that they used to avoid are now open and they can go and enjoy them and it's more than just the homelessness count I mean that's fine to look at a number but I think to really gauge how well an entity or a state is doing with homelessness you really ought to go out there and ask people how do they feel I mean has homelessness gotten better in Hawaii you really gotta think about it and ask yourself and if your quick instinct is not really it's gotten worse well then how do we find ways to make that better how do we change that public perception and I think that you can by getting these people some help if we were to provide affordable housing for homeless individuals and somehow lower the cost of living is that going to help that guy who's passed out on the sidewalk is that going to help that guy who's screaming and yelling on the corner I'm not so sure a few years ago I saw this documentary about the city of Seattle and kind of their struggles with homelessness and what I took away from that was the emphasis on substance abuse treatment facilities and how that could really be a way to help the situation not just for the general public but also for the specific individuals who are going through homelessness and maybe something like that could work in Hawaii maybe we need to have more discussions about introducing ideas like that I'm I'm not sure but at least take a look at that and see well if we tried this solution for a long time and things haven't gotten better again based on public perception and not just a voluntary count well maybe we can try something new and I think sometimes well if housing is provided for homeless individuals what about regular people who work and who aren't homeless what about housing for them for for us and that's not to say that homeless people don't need homes too they do but I think when a lot of emphasis is put on well we need specific housing just for homeless individuals well what about people who are not homeless and I think you get a lot of what about me questions and then the problem becomes so huge that you can't do anything because I think about someone like my brother who can't afford to buy a house or a home here in Hawaii should he just declare that he's homeless so he can now get special access to homeless housing and what kind of incentives would be provided once he were to get that Homeless housing to get out of that Homeless housing because I think the jump from being homeless to being able to afford a decent place and get a nice job it's a pretty big gap to jump from like zero to 60 let's say so this is just some thoughts that I was thinking about when it comes to homeless in Hawaii I mean it's kind of sad you've been filming this video was hard because originally I wanted to film over there but I couldn't and I want to film over there but I couldn't and so I just picked this tree because there's nobody around here and I think that we can keep trying to solve homelessness by talking about or even building affordable housing for homeless individuals and we can talk about cost of living and trying to find ways to lower the cost of living so that more people don't enter homelessness keep doing those things but I wish that there was just some talk on substance abuse treatment on how we can get people help because I think to talk about housing and cost of living is very Noble and I think on the surface it seems like the quick and easy Band-Aid it seems to make sense but I think when you walk around places like Honolulu or other places in Hawaii that doesn't seem to be the solution that's a solution for our totally different problem but maybe not for these individuals and again I'm talking about the homeless individuals who we're often going to see an encounter on the street because it almost seems like an attempt to solve an unsolvable problem as if that was somehow fix everything and if we were to actually figure out solutions for housing and cost of living again it would benefit everyone but in the meantime maybe figure out what the root cause of the problem is for some of these people maybe we can address it directly maybe we'll see quicker results and more importantly long-term results and after Decades of trying to solve homelessness in Hawaii and I mean going back from statehood trying to solve it maybe we can try something different maybe we can have a different discussion or bring different people to the table to figure out new strategies and ways that maybe we'll work so thanks for watching and aloha [Music]

Channel: Hello From Hawaii

Views: 23,560

Keywords: living in hawaii, Life in hawaii, what is it like in Hawaii, Moving to hawaii, hello from hawaii, hawaii, oahu, honolulu, hawaii life, life on hawaii, hawaiian life

Id: Jskdelcrmf8

Length: 12min 40sec (760 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 05 2023