Let homeless stay until they have options

Once again, Honolulu's Parks and Recreation Department and the mayor's office displayed their cowardice and poor judgement by closing Ala Moana Park with little notice and no coordination with homeless service providers (Star-Bulletin, March 28).

The city continues to demonstrate absolutely no leadership with respect to the homeless problem, both refusing to meet and coordinate with service providers, volunteers and advocates and leaving the burden essentially to the state.

Let the individuals who need to live in the park live there, for crying out loud! No one else uses the park during the overnight. Keep it safe and clean, but let them live there until more options can be developed.

Unemployment is low, so can't they work?

Here we go again -- all bleeding hearts crying for homeless people. Sure, we need to sympathize with the homeless people. But with unemployment so low, why can't these people work like everyone else? Surely they can do some small jobs, starting with cleaning the park itself. I am sure those with some mental illness can do some menial job. Heck, they do something if they are institutionalized instead of just sitting around the whole day.

If immigrants can work, why can't these homeless people work? Just look at the area under the airport viaduct and Waianae coast! These beaches and bathrooms are filthy.

When will the Waianae Coast get cleaned up as well? I would like to visit the beaches but I'm afraid to because of the homeless people who are not very happy when you go and play near their tents. I pay taxes and I expect to visit and use clean park beaches and bathrooms.

We are deporting hardworking immigrants, but cry over people who choose not to work. Get on with it!

Why doesn't city show more compassion?

There are 200 human beings, including about 30 children, living in Ala Moana Park because they have no other place to live. Few people are homeless by choice. This letter is yet another voice asking why cannot our city government show a bit of compassion and understanding? Can it not meet with the staffs of the Waikiki Health Center and the Affordable Housing and Homeless Alliance before handing down an eviction edict? Can it not provide an alternative site before simply expelling people?

Living homeless is not easy, especially in all this rain. Our guess is that Parks Director Lester Chang has himself never been a victim of homelessness, or else he would never have acted in this manner.

Immigrants help keep wages artificially low

The immigrants do jobs that we will no longer do because, supposedly, we charge too much? However, we don't charge any more than our time is worth! After all, if our time is not worth the money you pay, then why hire us?

But if what we do is worth, to you, what you're willing to pay, then why not pay us what we deserve?

Are these too many decisions for you to make?

Then GO UNION! And let all your problems be solved.

Men, too, should have reproductive rights

Kapua Adams (Letters, March 27) said, regarding abortion, "I'm sick and tired of hearing men's opinions on this issue. It is a woman's right to choose, not theirs."

Only women have "reproductive rights" while men (including husbands) have no rights at all. If women don't want men to have any opinion in the matter, then women should take sole responsibility for all the consequences of pregnancy, including child support.

A current lawsuit might provide men with the same rights under Roe v. Wade, where men can decide whether or not they want to be fathers financially bound to the "decisions" of the women wanting to carry a baby nine months.

It's hypocritical to include the man as having a part in the pregnancy only when the woman wants money, or is it? Maybe Ms. Adams has a good idea: Women should take 100 percent responsibility for the babies they carry for nine months, and men should only take responsibility for the babies they carry for nine months. This goes completely along with her ridiculous reasoning.