Nanakuli homeless on move again

Last year, Anthony Aila Jr. lived by himself in a tent at Maili Beach Park. When the city closed the park for a cleaning, forcing homeless people to move, he quietly relocated to nearby Ulehawa Beach Park.

"I watched them crumble my house to nothing," said Aila, 45.

Nearly a year later, Aila will have to move again with the city cleaning and closing the Nani Kai section of Ulehawa Beach Park in Nanakuli Monday night.

Aila, who said he suffers from mental disabilities including bipolar disorder, plans on staying this time. Other homeless people living on this section of the beach said they will leave, not to one of the area's crowded shelters, but to another beach.

"We go into the parks not looking at the homeless," said Les Chang, director for the city's Parks and Recreation Department. "We go into the parks looking at the maintenance needs. When a cleaning involves the homeless, our procedure is to let people know very early so they can find a place to go."

In a Dec. 26 announcement, Mayor Mufi Hannemann said city crews will clean the comfort station in this section, located on Farrington Highway near Kaukama Road, because it is the newest park facility on the Leeward Coast and is already run down.

The Honolulu Police Department will begin enforcing nightly park closures from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m., as it has done in other parks the city cleaned, including Thomas Square, Pokai Bay Beach Park, Mokuleia Beach Park and Maili Beach Park. People found loitering in the parks during these hours could be cited for trespassing or arrested, police spokeswoman Michelle Yu said.

Since the city began its campaign to clean and close parks around the island two years ago, hundreds of homeless residents have moved -- sometimes from park to park -- while state and homeless agencies struggle to find shelters to house them.

Kaulana Park, the state's coordinator for homeless solutions, said they are searching for ways to solve chronic homelessness, concentrating on providing social services in addition to increasing public housing units.

"Affordable housing is a piece of the long-term solution," he said. "It has to be complemented with services, too. Potentially, you may build something that people may afford but cannot keep. There has to be a pathway for them to get to that end zone. It's more than just bricks."

Many people living in Ulehawa Beach Park could be considered chronically homeless, which generally includes single persons or couples living on the streets for a year or more with mental disabilities and drug abuse problems. The state has focused its efforts on families, however, Park said the chronically homeless do not fit into emergency shelters the state has recently created.

"I cannot live by a thousand rules," Aila said.