No rest for the homeless: Bill would ban sitting almost anywhere on Oʻahu

In Honolulu, being homeless is already a crime in many ways.

It’s illegal to sit or lie down in Waikiki and parts of 17 other neighborhoods. It is also against the law to obstruct a public sidewalk or store belongings on public property. And that’s not even taking into account anti-vagrancy laws at the state level.

But for Honolulu City Council Chair Ann Kobayashi, the existing laws don’t go far enough. She introduced a measure last month, Bill 73, that would criminalize sitting or lying on a public sidewalk within 800 feet of a park or school from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.

The bill was introduced despite federal guidance that says to leave homeless encampments where they are, unless individual housing units are available, to help control COVID-19. 

“Clearing encampments can cause people to disperse throughout the community and break connections with service providers,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states. “This increases the potential for infectious disease spread.”

There is no companion legislation to Bill 73 to increase funding for homeless resources and housing. And Honolulu’s funding for housing and homelessness stayed stagnant this year. It’s a third of 1 percent in the $3 billion operating budget. Human services are 0.8 percent of the nearly $1.3 billion capital budget.

A 2017 analysis of Oʻahu’s demand for permanent supportive housing—that’s housing combined with social services—showed that the island could provide a home for all 1,800 people who needed that level of help for only $27.8 million per year for the first 10 years.

That’s less than 1 percent of the city budget.

After 10 years, it would be $38 million a year, according to the report by the Corporation for Supportive Housing. That’s 1.3 percent of the city budget to address a problem that is consistently ranked among residents’ greatest concerns.

A separate analysis by the Hawaiʻi Appleseed Center for Law & Economic Justice estimated it would be more expensive: $76.6 million every year for 10 years. That represents approximately 2 percent of the city’s operating budget.