Intl. Herald Tribune - December 5, 2006
HONOLULU -When the home she had rented for 30 years for $300 a month was sold, Alice Greenwood and her 6-year- old son joined an estimated 1,000 people living in tents along the beaches on the Wai`anae Coast of O`ahu.
"There was no choice but to come on the beach," said Greenwood, 60, who is disabled because of a work-related injury she suffered eight years ago and who lost her benefits a month before losing her home.
Homelessness in Hawai`i has become so pervasive that the governor has assigned a state employee to work full- time at getting people off the beaches and into transitional housing.
Once there, they have access to rent assistance programs and affordable housing.
While hundreds of homeless people live on Honolulu's beaches, including the tourist center Waikiki, it is along the 13 miles, or 20 kilometers, of beaches along the Wai`anae Coast on the semiarid west shore where the problem is most visible.
The population of Wai`anae, home to about 40,000 of O`ahu's 900,000 people, is predominately native Hawaiian and is historically low income....
The real estate market has skyrocketed along with the job growth, and houses on the Wai`anae Coast that rented for $200 or $300 a month a couple of years ago are now advertised for more than $1,000.
Nobody knows exactly how many people are living on the beach.
Kaulana Park, the state's point man for the homeless, estimated that more than 1,000 people lived on the Wai`anae Coast beaches but cautioned that any count was good only on the day it was taken.
And that estimate does not account for the hidden homeless - people who sleep on a relative's sofa, or in their cars, or camp in areas not as visible as the public beaches.
Tomorrow - Employed & Still Trapped On The Beach...
