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It is heartening to see our local government again has focused its laser eyes and is set on assisting the hundreds of residents who are unable to find affordable accommodation in our currently exorbitantly priced housing market on Maui. These are neighbors and community members without a house or home.
The five proposals emanating out of the administration: arrest those caught drinking in public, urinating or defecating in public (yet at night all public restrooms are locked down by 7 p.m.), lying down on a public sidewalk, cite those aggressively asking for financial assistance or stealing shopping carts.
Now we are going to close down for an indeterminate time the public camping at Kanaha Beach without first finding alternative locations for the scores of families and individuals who find themselves without a place to stay. Remember the public camping at Baldwin Beach and Rainbow parks? Briefly closed, never to be reopened.
Sadly, once again, the policy proposed is totally backward. Kanaha Beach Park definitely needs to be cleaned and maintained. Yet, not before the human beings who currently are there find a safe alternative location to be housed. When the county parks department swoops down and eliminates camping, are we going to arrest those still there? What about the children? Will they find themselves taken from their families and dropped into our social service agencies?
Why not coordinate with our governor’s emergency proclamation and start securing locations to house these members of our community? Why criminalize their already challenging situation?
Nikhilananda
Huelo