Thursday, July 04, 2013
City cruelty to homeless noted in tweets
“The new law means you only have a right to own things if you have a place to stay. It also goes against the state constitution’s law of the splintered paddle, which allows all people in Hawaii to lie by the side of the road without harm.”
by Larry Geller
Thanks to Word on the Street’s tweet for bringing the Bill 7 and the Refugee Population of Hawai`i document to my attention. I hadn’t seen it.
(@WOTSBMORE is “Baltimore’s first grassroots, street newspaper with a special focus on the issue of homelessness.”)
More from the document:
Supposedly the goods taken are stored and can be reclaimed by going to the city and paying $200, which of course most homeless people do not have to spare. Besides the reclamation fee, the houseless must be able to prove ownership of their property. An exception is that any shopping carts will be returned promptly to business owners. The new law means you only have a right to own things if you have a place to stay. It also goes against the state constitution’s law of the splintered paddle, which allows all people in Hawaii to lie by the side of the road without harm.
When the law was passed, Mayor Caldwell said he would delay implementation to do outreach to the homeless population and let them know ahead of time so that they would not be caught unawares. I asked all six refugees today if there had been any outreach to the encampment, and all said they had not heard of Bill 7 until I mentioned it, and that the raid came with no prior warning. You can see for yourself from the image at the top of the page that the notice of removal was posted at 8:57, the time of the raid.
Requiring someone to pay $200 they don’t have seems to be a clear violation of due process.
I’m pretty sure that the Caldwell administration doesn’t care who tweets what. It will sadly take a federal judge to protect the civil rights that we all enjoy, including those without roofs over their heads. And gobs of taxpayer money of course: at $15,000 each time for the raids plus legal fees when a court eventually takes this up. See: Mayor admits huge waste of money in homeless raids (4/3/2013).
“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”--Albert Einstein, (attributed)
That money would be better spent on evidence-based approaches to assisting the homeless to move into permanent living situations—instead of cruelly stealing their possessions from them.
Someone, is it Abercrombieʻs admin? as of today, put 16 people on a plane to Kauai with cab fare to take them to Anahola beach (Hawaiian homelands).
: July 4, 2013 at 9:33:00 PM HST 
They also take and destroy people's identification which is the illegal destruction of personal records. Someone I met recently who works in Records was shocked at this news. I'm pretty sure the City is aware of this.
Re: Anahola... any word from people in Anahola about 16 people showing up? I'd be interested in finding if this is true or not.
: July 15, 2013 at 9:52:00 PM HST << Home
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