Editor’s note: This is part 1 in a 2-part series examining the growing number of homeless residing in the Kona Old Industrial Area and the tensions they are causing with some business owners, who say their behavior is becoming more unsavory and aggressive. One of the solutions county officials are moving on is to provide micro housing units for homeless in that very neighborhood, which isn’t being well-received by some interested parties.
Editor’s note: This is part 1 in a 2-part series examining the growing number of homeless residing in the Kona Old Industrial Area and the tensions they are causing with some business owners, who say their behavior is becoming more unsavory and aggressive. One of the solutions county officials are moving on is to provide micro housing units for homeless in that very neighborhood, which isn’t being well-received by some interested parties.
KAILUA-KONA — You’ve seen Kendall on the streets.
A man slimly built, 61, with white hair and donning a pair of shades — maybe you mistook him for a beachgoer, a tourist. Maybe, in passing, you imagined he was a snowbird with a condo down south, lugging some supplies from Target in his two tote bags back to wherever he parked his late-model SUV.
You wouldn’t know Kendall was homeless to look at him. The man is relatively clean cut and has a smartphone. You wouldn’t guess he was homeless if you spoke to him — a mild-mannered, eloquent and thoughtful man who spent 35 years working in fine dining service.
Yet Kendall is constantly struggling amid a crisis of image. Used needles littering a playground in a public park, human feces in a hedgerow, a staggering drunk belligerently harassing young tourists before passing out on public property only to be roused and arrested by police — these are the stereotypical images some members of the community associate with Kendall when they find out he’s homeless.
“These are recent arrivals to the island,” says a perturbed Kendall, who has lived — and at times worked — in Hawaii for more than seven years. “They don’t have any money. They don’t do any research. They don’t know where they are or how to just be humans, and that’s frustrating because other people see me in that same way. I don’t see me like that.”
Officer Ellsworth Fontes, a member of the Hawaii County Police Department’s Community Policing Section who walks a foot patrol on Alii Drive, said the stereotypes that plague Kendall — and all homeless, for that matter — are largely unfair. He added that it’s important to remember homelessness can creep up on just about anyone, especially in a place like Hawaii.
“There are homeless people who want to better themselves and just fell on hard times,” Fontes said. “We’re all one, two paychecks away from being homeless. It’s hard living here. There are many homeless we’ve never had a problem with. They try to get better, and we try to help them. But there are also the ones we see over and over who don’t want to help themselves. Those are the ones we have a hard time with.”
It’s been more than a year since Kendall’s county housing voucher expired and he found himself in the streets, unable to afford Hawaii’s crippling cost of living.
Most folks his age are window shopping vacation homes, polishing their golf clubs or loading up their Kindle Fires in preparation for the well-deserved relaxation that accompanies one’s golden years. A life of work behind them, they are secure, ready to enjoy the fruits of their labors.
But labor is all that awaits Kendall with literally every step he takes. A triple-bypass survivor, he suffers from peripheral artery disease and diabetic neuropathy. Every 200 feet, the pain builds up in his tightly wrapped lower extremities, and he’s forced to press the reset button — a heavy burden for a man with no place of his own to rest; a man who must always move as a means of survival.
“You have to time yourself, you know?” Kendall says as he drops two bags full of his meager possessions and wraps his fingers around the pole of a street sign near Pawai Place in the Old Kona Industrial District. “The toughest part is lugging all my stuff around.”
Kendall’s load grew lighter in March, but it wasn’t the blessing it may sound. His backpack was stolen right out from under him as he napped on the beach he calls home. The robbery happened on his birthday.
A rising tide of homelessness
All the time Kendall spends propped against street signs or stooped on staircases affords him opportunity to ruminate, not only on his own situation, but on how Kona has changed since he became a permanent resident of its streets and alleyways.
“I notice there are a lot of new homeless people who don’t have a clue what’s going on with the community or how to act period,” Kendall says. “It’s getting bigger and bigger. I see new people on the streets I’ve never seen before, and I’ve been here more than a year.”
Kendall’s observations are on par with state and county research, which has documented an unmistakable trend. The most recent Point in Time Study, conducted in late January 2015, approximated the number of homeless on Hawaii Island at 1,241. That is more than a 100 percent increase from 2012, when it was estimated the homeless population was 617.
And these numbers are now nearly 16 months old. If every single piece of numerical data collected in the last half decade collectively offer any reliable indication, the number of homeless has continued to swell.
The homeless ranks have fanned out in Kona. The population is scattered along the coast, but police and business owners say the heaviest homeless areas stretch from Alii Drive to the Old Airport Park and up to Kona Commons.
Perhaps the area absorbing the largest increase in homeless traffic is the Kona Old Industrial Area. Homeless individuals can frequently be seen panhandling on the corner of Luhia and Kaiwi streets. Several cars stuffed with loose belongings — blankets and beach towels draped over and across the windows — line Loloku Street on a more or less permanent basis.
And, of course, there’s always traffic on Pawai Place, where HOPE Services’ Friendly Place and emergency housing facilities provide outreach to the homeless.
A deteriorating situation
The homeless presence has not gone unnoticed by the business sector, where tourism reigns supreme. And in much the same way Kendall became saddled with his public relations crisis, the homeless ranks are being negatively branded as the brash, aggressive behavior of some is sullying the reputation of the many.
Susan Graffe — a sales assistant for the last eight years at BMW Hawaii, located on Loloku Street — said on several occasions police have been called to address cases of domestic violence visible from display floor windows.
Mattson Davis, former CEO of Kona Brewing Company and the landlord of the property on which it’s situated, said some homeless disrobe from the waist down to defecate and urinate in public spaces, often avoiding the courtesy of even using the bushes and repurposing the pavement as their toilet.
“We have had customers be uncomfortable and talk about that, and some have decided not to stay,” Davis said. “Employees have been concerned for safety and complained about it. As the landlord, every day there are piles of feces, piles of trash, people sleeping in shady areas, people urinating everywhere.”
A manager of one business in the industrial park who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation said verbal altercations and violent behavior between homeless and the surrounding business as well as tourists is ramping up.
“It isn’t a matter of if someone will be hurt out here,” the source said. “It’s a matter of when.”
The aggressive behavior is even more troubling as tourists are being drawn with greater frequency into the expanding area.
“Alii Drive has been, for a long time, the major thoroughfare for where tourism flocks,” said Kristin Kahaloa, Executive Director of the Kona-Kohala Chamber of Commerce. “But now, with Kona Brewing Company and Kona Commons, we are creating a new pathway for our community and a new place people will go and spend time. There are things that will pull visitors into the industrial area, and previously I don’t think visitors frequented that part of town.”
Police have made efforts to curb unsavory behavior perpetrated by homeless individuals in the Old Industrial Area and elsewhere, but Kona Patrol Captain Randall Ishii said it’s a losing and redundant battle beyond the scope and abilities that police services alone can provide.
“It’s like a revolving door,” Ishii explained. “Usually, the offenses homeless do commit are very minor — misdemeanors or petty misdemeanors. They might stay in jail overnight or the weekend, but after they go to court, the courts usually don’t hold them, so they’re back on the street and the same things occur.”
The police have partnered with HOPE Services, the Department of Health and several other organizations under a county directive to create a Chronic Homeless Intervention and Rehab Program, or CHIRP. The Community Policing Section is also working on changing the signs on Loloku Street to make parking along the roadside illegal at certain times of day.
An ordinance rendering the habitation of a vehicle between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. illegal already exists, unless the vehicle is parked on private property with the property owner’s permission.
Searching for answers
Desperate for solutions to the problem, the business sector has turned to the Kailua Village Improvement District and its executive director Debbie Baker. The Improvement District uses contractor Block by Block to provide janitorial, landscape maintenance and security services to the district, which stretches from K-Mart on Kamakaeha Avenue to the Royal Kona Resort on Alii Drive.
Baker said her discussions with Block by Block have illuminated the situation for her, making clear that the homeless issues Kona businesses face are hardly unique to Hawaii.
“Block by Block vendors service 76 business improvement districts across the nation, I believe, and they told me the number one issue with almost every district is the increasing presence of homeless individuals,” said Baker, a resident of the island for more than five decades. “I think all of us here are compassionate people, and we’d like to find better solutions. If we don’t address the homeless situation, that will devalue our entire historic Kailua Village, so the needs of the homeless must be addressed.”
In response to growing concern across the state, Hawaii Gov. David Ige signed an emergency proclamation in October of last year, allowing the rapid reallocation of resources to fund programs that could promote immediate housing for the homeless, among other initiatives.
Not born of that proclamation, but greatly facilitated by it, came Hawaii County’s answer to the call: micro housing units. The project will place 32 micro housing units, built in repurposed shipping containers, on a plot of county-owned land immediately adjacent to the Friendly Place in the Old Industrial Area.
The project has been approved and is moving forward under the direction of Hawaii County Housing Administrator Susan Akiyama. Roughly $2.4 million has been appropriated for the project, and construction is scheduled for completion on October 31 of this year.
But several stakeholders have taken issue with the location of the micro housing units, as well as any characterization of them as the best possible solution to a problem that some feel is spiraling out of control.
Editor’s note: Part 2 of this series will focus on Hawaii County’s decision to locate the micro housing units in the Old Industrial Area, the friction between the county and the business community due to that decision, the partnerships being forged in planning and implementation of the project and what efforts are being made to alleviate the problem of homelessness on several levels beyond mere housing.