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I'm a big proponent of workability, so that's the yardstick I use to evaluate projects like this. Without having taken a deep look, but just a quick scan, this project looks quite workable. But you can't just slavishly rubber stamp their plan and expect the copy to succeed. You have to have natural leadership emerge within the group, and they have to gain the cooperation and participation of the community and the government. And that means that the direction the group takes could be different from this one.
Poking around a little deeper, the story appears more complicated. It seems that there is some tension with the current city administration about the "transitional" part of the "transitional campground" designation. It appears that the city has an expectation that most of the people coming into Dignity Village to get off the streets will eventually transition out and up to mainstream housing, rather than becoming permanent residents. I expect that will become a point of discussion when the contract expires in two years. And one of the residents says, in the story I linked below, that maybe Dignity Village has seen its day.
Meanwhile another homeless group in Portland called R2D2 (Right To Dream Too) has apparently won a long struggle to create a similar village in the Pearl District, aided and abetted by a local businessman who has been seeking revenge on the city administration for a long running series of delays and disputes about permits which ultimately caused his building to collapse before appropriate repairs could be made. Nor would they allow him to build a new building on the site. So he simply raized the lot, and then invited the R2D2 group to camp out on it.
This gave a heart attack to the manager of a new $55 million building, being erected next door by Chinese visa-investors (invest $500,000 in USA, get a permanent resident visa), who started ponying up bags of cash to get the campground located elsewhere. So the vengeful business guy got $1.5 mil or so for his property, and the R2D2 group got nearly a $ million and a parking lot under a bridge to use for their "transitional campground."
Anyway, it's all a case study in just how complicated it can get just to give people a place to pitch a tent and shower and use the toilet and sleep in safety. As homeless people say, it's a big relief not to have to sleep with one eye open.
Quote:
Dignity Village: Residents fight 'complacency' as Right 2 Dream Too captures Portland's attention
Ten miles away, another homeless community with ties to Dignity Village wants to create the city's second publicly approved transitional campground. Two years after it first arrived on a prominent corner in downtown Portland, Right 2 Dream Too is embroiled in a public and political fight not dissimilar to the one waged by Dignity Village supporters 13 years ago.
The two camps have a lot in common beyond their mission of providing safe, dry and accessible shelter to Portlanders experiencing homelessness.
.....
Both communities have clear rules: no drugs, no alcohol and no violence. Residents must take turns manning the security desk, which is open around the clock, at both sites. Stealing and discrimination, sexual, racial or any other form, aren't allowed.
Like R2D2, residents at Dignity Village govern and police themselves.
Local hawaiian state government is so corrupt we will always have homeless problems, our roads are the worse in all US states, the local government will even dump raw sewerage into Honolulu Waikiki where tourists are swimming in every day.
The money allocated for our state to fix infrastructure are consistently misused every year.
Local hawaiian state government is so corrupt we will always have homeless problems, our roads are the worse in all US states, the local government will even dump raw sewerage into Honolulu Waikiki where tourists are swimming in every day. The money allocated for our state to fix infrastructure are consistently misused every year.
This is why I'm so intrigued by Hotzcatz's original question... what can WE do? What can be accomplished without government funds or involvement? How can communities come together to have an impact? What can WE do to make it better?
I think these are questions that are well worth asking.
This is why I'm so intrigued by Hotzcatz's original question... what can WE do? What can be accomplished without government funds or involvement? How can communities come together to have an impact? What can WE do to make it better?
I think these are questions that are well worth asking.
We could go back to the local value of "we" instead of "I". Where community and ohana were priorities vs money, material comforts etc.
Tough sell for a society that now is addicted to self and "I".
"Hawaii Lodging & Tourism Association (HLTA) is giving the Institute for Human Services (IHS) $100,000 this year in addition to the same amount next year."
The goal during the first year is to get 300 of them either into shelters or back to their home state. IHS says it hopes to help about 120 homeless from the mainland go back. The homeless will have to pay at least half of their plane ticket and if they can't afford it, IHS says they will help them find the money.
Interesting though how on HNN Sunrise this morning, Steve said the new policy will either be: Get in a shelter or go back to the Mainland.
I hate to say this hotz because id probably get stink for it but if you want to find out what the solution to the homeless problem is? All you have to do is go back in time to when there wasn't a homeless problem and findout why. It wouldn't be all that far back, in fact i never recalled seeing homeless in our old times, not saying there wasn't any.
As for solutions, there are probably many and effective models, in some cities there are permanent standing "tent cities" that work in a communal manner. Where money was raised to buy land to put the tent city on.
But the main solution i believe you nailed it on the head. Some people need to learn to live with less. With our world population rising and the gap between wealth distribution rising the issue is going to get worse as people battle over remaining resources.
The reason there were not any homeless at an earlier time in Hawaii is that before tourism was what it is now, the properties in Hawaii were not valued on a global exchange market, but on a Hawaiian exchange market. What outsiders will pay for the Palm trees and beach has introduced a new level of greed and excess development on the water, which on an island by definition means every single direction you go except the middle, which is usually uninhabitable due to volcano. Bottomline is property in Hawaii has soared in value and tax base and the ones who can afford this are the wealthy mainland tourists and people in countries with strong currency exchange rates (e.g. Japan).
The result: property values have surged up, certain businesses have profited enormously from it, but at the expense of the local land dwellers of Hawaii whose traditional living, based on the old property values, has been compromised
through no real fault of their own.
The tourism does introduce more plusses than minuses, but the effect on locals are winners and losers. The winners are those who are in the business of customer service and tourism and travel packaging and architecture and engineering. The winners are also those in position to sell age-old land to a hotel chain seeking to buy out the land to build a resort with pool. Govt also wins as does the universities...all in all its more winners than losers. Tourism is a staple of Hawaii, but it's not a win-win for all the locals.
The losers and likely homeless are the locals who lived nomadically but relied on old cost structures for budgeting their costs of living and so a little pay went a long way, and now they are screwed.
Normally I don't support hefty taxation, but I would support higher taxes on hotel chains to subsidize costs of living for locals. Visitors won't likely change behavior due to tax add-ons since there really are no substitutes to visiting beautiful Hawaii.
Last edited by Ericthebean; 10-30-2014 at 10:48 AM..
If you subsidize the locals - that only results in more locals. We need higher taxes on the locals to discourage more people from living here.
It is a catch-22, Viper. While I agree with your theory, the reality is that people are going to go to Hawaii irrespective of cost. You're in aviation, so look at it from this perspective:
Q3-2014: The US Legacy carriers all have revenue of ~$1B and that is despite fees for checked bags, seat selection, buy-on-board, etc. So despite higher airfare and additional fees, load factor continued to increase and people still flew (though it could be argued that the airlines are finally right-sizing aircraft, but that is a different story).
So from a Hawaii perspective, since resort fees haven't had a negative impact on occupancy rates, a tourist "fee" of $25 / per person for any flight arriving into Hawaii would not deter people from visiting. Based on the Hawaii Tourism Authority, 8,235,510 visitors came to Hawaii in 2013. Charge each visitor $25 and you've got got an additional $205M.
Now...increased tax on the local population may force some to move back to the Mainland, but you also run the risk of those generational families remaining on-Island but requiring additional social services that they did not require prior to the tax increase. Not an easy situation to resolve but I would suggest a modest tax increase on the population and a tourist "fee" for visitors arriving to the Islands.
Q3-2014: The US Legacy carriers all have revenue of ~$1B and that is despite fees for checked bags, seat selection, buy-on-board, etc. So despite higher airfare and additional fees, load factor continued to increase and people still flew (though it could be argued that the airlines are finally right-sizing aircraft, but that is a different story).
Even when you add up all the ancillary revenue - flying today is far less expensive than the 1970's, 1980's, and 1990's......
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