A t first, it sounds like a good idea. Give homeless people a free one-way plane ticket off the islands. It gets them out of Hawaii and it should save the state money because it won’t have to provide services
A
t first, it sounds like a good idea. Give homeless people a free one-way plane ticket off the islands. It gets them out of Hawaii and it should save the state money because it won’t have to provide services to these folks. Bottom line, there would be fewer homeless here, which would be an answer to many prayers, especially on Oahu.
This bill signed more than a year ago by Gov. Neil Abercrombie was called the “Return to Home” program. It would have distributed $100,000 over three years to provide free one-way airfare tickets for eligible homeless individuals to return to their families on the Mainland. However, the Department of Human Services — the coordinating department as written in the law — declined to establish and administer the program.
Rep. Riba Cabanilla is calling for the program to be instituted. She believe it would ensure that individuals who find themselves homeless on the islands are able to reconnect with family and support networks where they would have the opportunity to recover.
“This appropriation is much needed to decrease the homeless population in our state, to return these stranded homeless individuals from the Mainland to an environment of their choosing,” she wrote in the release issued Friday, “and most importantly to preserve these funds for our own homeless kamaaina.
We have a few concerns.
If these homeless folks had supportive families and networks back on the Mainland, they wouldn’t be here. They would be with their families trying to get back on their feet — if they wanted to be doing that. Our guess is, they prefer winters in Hawaii to winters in the Northwest. They already are in an environment of their choosing. Somehow, they came up with the cash to get out here and if they really wanted to go home, they could come up with the cash to get back or make a call to those supportive families and networks. Also, if these families wanted their homeless relatives back on the Mainland with them, they would arrange for that to happen. We’re betting it would be a big surprise to have their long-lost, homeless uncle, aunt, brother or sister show up at their doorstep, courtesy of the state of Hawaii, and announce they’re home. Those families might just give them a lift to the airport and provide them with a free, one-way ticket back to the islands.
Further, there is nothing to prevent the recipients of these free, one-way tickets to the Mainland from sticking around there awhile, then returning to Kauai, Maui, Oahu or the Big Island. There would have to be a limit of one free ticket per homeless person.
Finally, we have concerns with Cabanilla’s comment that by shipping homeless back to the Mainland, it preserves funds “for our own homeless kamaaina.” Let’s not base our plans to work with and assist the homeless on where they’re from. Let’s avoid making distinctions about the homeless and how we perceive them, based on whether they’re from Hawaii or Helena, Montana. Let’s also not suggest that homeless from the Mainland deserve special treatment — such as a free plane ticket to the Mainland — that local homeless wouldn’t receive. No one is offering the homeless a free ticket to see their family in Honolulu.
Homelessness is a problem in Hawaii. According to the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, 5,000 to 10,000 homeless people were living in Hawaii on any given night in 2013. But we can’t solve that problem by putting people on a plane and hoping we never see them again. Because you know what? They’ll be back.
