Think About It: Home Is Where The Heart Is

Think About It: Home Is Where The Heart Is

If you think the homeless situation in Hawaii is simply going to go away over time, forget about it. But there are major efforts being made to provide on-site support, housing, alternatives, and opportunities, and those efforts must continue forever. Yes, people are being moved away from areas that might be frequented by APEC visitors, but the constant re-shuffling of the deck chairs on this titanic problem has been going on for decades- from the closing of A’ala Park’s homeless camp years ago, to the moving of people off of Leeward beaches, to the annual efforts to eradicate the encampments underneath the bridges beneath Nimitz Highway.

Religious groups, government entities, the private sector, and regular, every day volunteers are doing their best to help mitigate the fact that we simply have too many people living on the streets, in the parks, or on the beaches, for one reason or another. As has been mentioned many times, the homelessness dilemma is very complex- stemming from obstinate individuals to people with mental problems and others who have been financially devastated. But there is hope, and there are solutions and success stories.

While we perhaps shake our heads at unsightly tent cities and lean-tos that become public eyesores, we should continue to support any and every effort to dig deeper into the root causes of the individual homeless problems in a concerted, community effort to help this problem dissipate as best we can. That’s humanity, civility, good business, common sense, and a realization of the aloha spirit. Think about it…