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Lets do some apples to apples on a city by city basis.
The median single family home in San Francisco is $1.3 Million - a condo in San Francisco has a median of over $1.1 Million
By comparison, the median home price in Honolulu is $730K and a condo is $370K
Household income is $78,378 in SF vs. $73,581 in Honolulu
Property tax in SF is over 1% of the value of the home - Honolulu is .35% (that makes a condo at the median at least $13,000/year in property tax vs. $2,000 or less for a median condo in Honolulu)
Those differences buy you a lot of electricity and food
Definitely no argument when you present things that way. But everything isn't bread and roses as you try to present. In spirit of the city vs city argument The city of Honolulu has an aprox population of 337,000 while S.F is 837,000. Also Honolulu city residents pay about 1,000 more per person in local and state taxes then S.F residents. But the stat that says a lot about cost of living is the city of Honolulu has about 5,000 homeless people for a population of 337,000 vs San Francisco with an approx 6,436 for a population about 3x that of Honolulu. But to be fair in 2015 San Francisco was ranked the richest city in the country. But I do have to mirror another members quote that you and PJ are great at stats and money issues.
P.S what no one brought up is how Honolulu housing tends to be far smaller in size vs other cities. But nevertheless you guys are good at stats. Aloha
In spirit of the city vs city argument The city of Honolulu has an aprox population of 337,000 while S.F is 837,000.
But the stat that says a lot about cost of living is the city of Honolulu has about 5,000 homeless people for a population of 337,000 vs San Francisco with an approx 6,436 for a population about 3x that of Honolulu. But to be fair in 2015 San Francisco was ranked the richest city in the country.
Statistics don't lie unless of of course you manipulate them like you did.
Let me fix some things for you.
Oahu has a homeless population of roughly 4,900 for which Oahu has a population of 953,207
San Francisco has a homeless population of roughly 7,500 for which has a population of 837,442
So, San Francisco has roughly 50% more homeless and has a smaller population.
Statistics are what they are.
Another great positive statistic -
Roughly 7.5% of Hawaii households have investible assets of over $1,000,000 ranking it 3rd in the country - by the way, investible excludes your house and retirement funds.
Statistics don't lie unless of of course you manipulate them like you did.
Let me fix some things for you.
Oahu has a homeless population of roughly 4,900 for which Oahu has a population of 953,207
San Francisco has a homeless population of roughly 7,500 for which has a population of 837,442
So, San Francisco has roughly 50% more homeless and has a smaller population.
Statistics are what they are.
Another great positive statistic -
Roughly 7.5% of Hawaii households have investible assets of over $1,000,000 ranking it 3rd in the country - by the way, investible excludes your house and retirement funds.
"There are now more than 7,000 homeless in Hawaii -- the highest per capita rate in the nation. About 5,000 of those are packed into Honolulu"
Again are you changing the rules? Now are we talking county or island vs city? It's ok just trying to bring some balance. You say roughly 7.5 pecent of Hawai'i has investments of 1,000,000 or more? Great but did you know roughly 10% of the population of Hawai'i is collecting food stamps and in a recent survey of Hawai'i residents that about 50% claim they are living paycheck to paycheck.
And no one said it's all doom and gloom in Hawaii. This will be my last post on this conversation because I believe we may have strayed from the topic. Good day
Honolulu is #9, not so bad after all. Quite frankly, 5,000 homeless who are mostly COFA immigrants spread over a million people doesn't seen to bad to me - and as I mentioned, San Francisco has 50% more homeless with less people.
In a lot of ways, Hawaii is not only a tourist destination, but a homeless destination.
It's so nice here, that IHS goes with hundreds of beds empty every night in the men's section.
Why go to the shelter when you have beach front property?
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Why go to the shelter when you have beach front property?
Exactly. Shelters have been built and remain mostly unused. Yet our politically correct politicians continue to offer half-brained ideas for "relief" in ways that only attracts more of them to our tiny resource-strapped island.
The living environment found in every single other metropolis in the nation provides a natural deterrent to homelessness - extreme heat and extreme cold. We lack that here so it's no surprise that we have a high concentration of homeless. Honolulu is arguably the best place in the world for a homeless person to "settle".
Our low incidence of violent crime also makes living outside of protected shelters viable for the homeless population to exist. Violent crime against homeless people is extremely low here compared to other large cities.
The mentally ill represent a very large chunk of our homeless population. A less hostile environment to the homeless population (climate and human safety) disincentivizes some families that may prefer to institutionalize their mentally ill blood relatives to not take such measures. They may feel that the natural environment is not horribly unsafe for them and therefore don't feel the same "need" to force them into a shelter that provides mental healthcare. When the natural environment is so hostile that it is literally life threatening, you will see more families utilize more of their resources to care for their own simply because they cannot bear to see their family suffer to such an extent.
COFA also markedly increases the number of homeless here as it allows, unencumbered, a large group of people with third world standards of living to come and go freely (no visa or green card required). Nearly 9 in 10 of those living in the Kakaako tent city (that made national headlines) were from Micronesia and some estimates put their share of the homeless population of Oahu at nearly 25% (yet they only make up 1.2% of the population). The politically correct tend to ignore the reality and severity of the influx of this migrant group.
A very large percentage (not all) of our homeless population exists because of the extremely high desirability of our island to live detached from "the system". The only way to achieve a significant reduction in our homeless population is to forcefully institutionalize the mentally ill and to disincentivize homeless by making the environment hostile and undesirable for them.
Obviously neither will ever happen so we just need to learn to live among them the best we can.
The living environment found in every single other metropolis in the nation provides a natural deterrent to homelessness - extreme heat and extreme cold. We lack that here so it's no surprise that we have a high concentration of homeless.
Other cities have it much worse. The stat about per capita homeless at a state level is so incredibly misleading - because other states have population spread out and it skews the numbers at a per capita level.
Let's look at this at a city level and see where Oahu stacks up and the first 4 cities I thought of that came to mind on the west coast with populations not terribly far off from Oahu -
Exactly. Shelters have been built and remain mostly unused. Yet our politically correct politicians continue to offer half-brained ideas for "relief" in ways that only attracts more of them to our tiny resource-strapped island.
The living environment found in every single other metropolis in the nation provides a natural deterrent to homelessness - extreme heat and extreme cold. We lack that here so it's no surprise that we have a high concentration of homeless. Honolulu is arguably the best place in the world for a homeless person to "settle".
Our low incidence of violent crime also makes living outside of protected shelters viable for the homeless population to exist. Violent crime against homeless people is extremely low here compared to other large cities.
The mentally ill represent a very large chunk of our homeless population. A less hostile environment to the homeless population (climate and human safety) disincentivizes some families that may prefer to institutionalize their mentally ill blood relatives to not take such measures. They may feel that the natural environment is not horribly unsafe for them and therefore don't feel the same "need" to force them into a shelter that provides mental healthcare. When the natural environment is so hostile that it is literally life threatening, you will see more families utilize more of their resources to care for their own simply because they cannot bear to see their family suffer to such an extent.
COFA also markedly increases the number of homeless here as it allows, unencumbered, a large group of people with third world standards of living to come and go freely (no visa or green card required). Nearly 9 in 10 of those living in the Kakaako tent city (that made national headlines) were from Micronesia and some estimates put their share of the homeless population of Oahu at nearly 25% (yet they only make up 1.2% of the population). The politically correct tend to ignore the reality and severity of the influx of this migrant group.
A very large percentage (not all) of our homeless population exists because of the extremely high desirability of our island to live detached from "the system". The only way to achieve a significant reduction in our homeless population is to forcefully institutionalize the mentally ill and to disincentivize homeless by making the environment hostile and undesirable for them.
Obviously neither will ever happen so we just need to learn to live among them the best we can.
I'm sorry but a lot of your comment is like the rumors we heard in the papers and other sources that most of the homeless in Oahu and Honolulu are from the mainland and were shipped by other cities to Honolulu which just wasn't fact.The truth about homelessness in Honolulu is it's going to continue to rise with the continue rise in housing costs, the lack of affordable housing and the continue rise in population. This is the real true issue of the rising homeless populations across the country. The issue of COFA is just a smoke screen because unfortunately in the rest of the country homelessness has been a migration issue, a majority of the population moves around from city to city and state to state. Not so in Hawai'i which is more then thousands of miles away from any land mass. Majority of Hawai'i homeless are Hawai'i citizens or transplants. Not vagabonds or outsiders the some want others to believe. Unfortunately until we in society recognise the continue widening gap between the have and havenots the problem will continue to rise. I also would just like to put out a question for others on this thread to think about and I ask what is different now that Hawai'i has such a bad homeless problem when just 10 years or more ago our homeless problem wasn't even a blimp?
We also used to fund mental health institutions in the past. Not so much today.
Oh and PJ I believe a lot of other issues your right on
Other cities have it much worse. The stat about per capita homeless at a state level is so incredibly misleading - because other states have population spread out and it skews the numbers at a per capita level.
Let's look at this at a city level and see where Oahu stacks up and the first 4 cities I thought of that came to mind on the west coast with populations not terribly far off from Oahu -
Oahu: Population: 953,000 Homeless: 4,900
Seattle: Population 652,000 Homeless 4,500
San Francisco: Population 837,000 Homeless 7,500
Las Vegas: Population 600,000 Homeless 9,500
Portland: Population 609,000 Homeless 4,000
I'm curious as to why you would count Oahu a whole island with many towns to a single city like S.F or Seattle? Honolulu the city not county population is approximately 337,000 residents with approximately 5,000 homeless people? It is what it is. Now if you want to count counties in states I'm sure the figures would be different? Also you could say if Honolulu had the population of these other cities that the homeless counts would be more like 10,000 or more right?
In a lot of ways, Hawaii is not only a tourist destination, but a homeless destination.
It's so nice here, that IHS goes with hundreds of beds empty every night in the men's section.
Why go to the shelter when you have beach front property?
Doesn't the IHS charge money for homeless to use there services? Or am I wrong? I believe I read an article on that recently?.Not that contributeing to the program is a bad thing. It would be cool to know if the fees are held in funds to transition of the streets?
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