Revitalize River Street Corridor — wisely

“;What the city can do for Chinatown is what it did for Waikiki,”; Mayor Mufi Hannemann said at the 2006 Chinatown Summit.

Mayor Hannemann, a longtime supporter of Chinatown, has often talked fondly of eating here and watching movies at its long-gone theaters as a child. I, for one, feel that the mayor has endeavored to live up to his promise. “;The Mayor's Clean Team”; works seven days a week and 11 hours a day. He also is making sure the necessary infrastructure is in place, including:

» Providing necessary police for the district;

» Putting enhanced lighting along River and Hotel streets;

» Providing, through the Department of Community Services, low-interest commercial rehabilitation loans to promote rehabilitation of Chinatown structures;

» Promoting Chinatown as a visitor attraction, through the funding for street festivals and other events.

Chinatown has its own rhythm, system and style, making it a destination for anyone serious about art, culture, history and entertainment. Its growing mix of businesses has created an eclectic brew of historical, cultural, educational and entertainment options not found elsewhere in Honolulu. All the horror stories about the area are being replaced with innovative businesses.

In a speech last year in Chinatown, Hannemann said: “;Once again the public and private sectors have come together to pool our resources to ensure an exciting and memorable calendar of events for residents and visitors alike. This partnership, first introduced by my administration in 2006, grows stronger each year.”;

This is what makes Chinatown so exciting. Chinatown is still evolving. It continues to incorporate a rich mixture of cultures, people and activities, while maintaining a strong sense of identity.

In his summit statement in 2006, Hannemann wrote: “;(The city) cannot ignore the problem of homelessness, but there is no universal remedy. Challenges are beyond the city's means and capabilities, but (the) city will do its part to work with the state government. (It is) looking for ideas and partnerships to help address this issue in Chinatown.”;

Nearly everyone involved agrees the area cannot reach its full potential until it attracts more residents who live and work in the area. This tends to create real “;communities,”; rather than areas where the sidewalks are rolled up at night and the streets given over to vice. Most important, Chinatown is a neighborhood.

Now that the merchants, landowners, community associations and other organizations have come together requesting a plan to revitalize the River Street Corridor to enhance the area's economic development and provide much-needed property tax to the City & County—as opposed to another place for the homeless—we are being maligned by the very people who said we should come together as partners.

I don't think that the community is opposed to helping/housing the homeless. However, when the River Street Corridor is developed, the property that the city has designated for the homeless will not generate any income to the city and will, in fact, be a drain on the city's dwindling coffers.

A better location would be Iwilei, near Goodwill and the Institute for Human Services. This is in a light industrial area and would have a lesser impact on residences. An Iwilei location is also equally distant to the Chinatown core (Hotel /Maunakea), as is the proposed River Street Residences. The Iwilei property is state-owned.

The Chinatown community should not be accused of NIMBYism. Instead we are SIMBY: “;Start In My Backyard.”; We may need to keep the big picture in context: The community has come together to focus on action in Chinatown to foster economic, social and cultural growth. This leads to sustainable community economic development. Guided by SIMBYism, the River Street Corridor should be developed to its fullest potential by the community.

Doing more than its share on housing

By Lee Stack

Efforts by the city and state to address homeless and affordable-housing issues are commendable. The proposed Housing First Project also sounds like a promising approach. A similar project is currently located on the edge of Chinatown; it provides 25 units of transitional housing for adults with serious mental illness. On the other side of Chinatown, less than a mile away, two Institute for Human Services emergency shelters provide meals and more than 400 beds for the homeless. The recently created Next Step Shelter in Kakaako adds approximately 200 more beds in the downtown area and Quinn Lane provides another 42 units.

On the affordable-housing front, six of 12 city-owned public housing complexes are located in the immediate Chinatown neighborhood. City complexes in Chinatown comprise more than 62.5 percent of city- operated public housing units islandwide. These numbers do not include other city-owned properties on Oahu that are leased to nonprofits in support of special needs/affordable housing. Of 1,009 such units, again, more than half are located within Chinatown: Kekaulike Courtyards, Hale Pauahi, Smith-Beretania and River Pauahi Apartments. Kukui Gardens (857 units) sits just on the other side of Nuuanu Stream. It is difficult to think of other locales on Oahu that provide as many homeless shelter and affordable housing opportunities in such a small area.

Official counts of homeless are undertaken on a semi-annual or annual basis during a single point in time (usually one day). The count for the Downtown region includes the area from Salt Lake to Piikoi Street. The actual number of unsheltered homeless persons counted in the Downtown area during the 2009 count was less than the number counted in East Honolulu (266 vs. 307).

Tallies in the Downtown area remained fairly constant after a drop of 23 percent from 2005: 259 in 2007 and 266 in 2009. Conversely, numbers of unsheltered homeless counted in East Honolulu rose from 176 in 2007 to 307 in 2009—a 74 percent increase. Numbers are surging in East Honolulu. (Actual numbers for both the Downtown and East Honolulu regions were later adjusted based on “;recollections”; of interviewees; I refer to the actual numbers counted in the study.)

Some Chinatown community members argue that charity organizations that feed people in the neighborhood artificially swell the numbers of homeless tallied while also attracting more homeless to the area. Indeed, of the 266 unsheltered people counted in the Downtown area, 107 were counted at a Chinatown charity/dining hall.

Groups outside of Chinatown have also expressed concerns and/or opposition to erecting permanent supportive housing for the chronically homeless at the proposed site. The city Prosecutor's Office has stated that locating such a facility there would be in direct conflict to the goals and programs of a designated “;Weed and Seed”; area.

Chinatown is bearing its fair share of the burden and the concerns of community members and others are justified.