July 10, 2024
Three hundred years ago on the islands of Hawai’i, making a living was not easy. Fishing ran the risks of sudden storm or rogue waves. Kalo farming required backbreaking labor in the most congenial of soils, and even more when the soil was thin or the water scarce. Fruit may simply grow on trees, but retrieving it wasn’t easy.
Homelessness, however, couldn’t be said to exist. When people left their homes they had a lot of options for building a new hale for themselves. The materials stood in the forests, and very rarely would anyone turn up to say, “You can’t live here.”
Homelessness is a product of a civilization in which some people have access to land, and some do not.
Recently the United States Supreme Court upheld an ordinance of Grants Pass, Oregon, banning “camping” on public land by involuntarily homeless people regardless of the availability of shelter beds. Those who have no other place to go – which is basically the definition of homelessness – can be arrested and jailed. I suppose those people could leave Grants Pass, Oregon, but what if the neighboring communities have similar bans? How soon do the options become a single option: Go directly to jail?
These measures explicitly criminalize poverty.
In the opinion of these stone-hearted justices, the United States Constitution permits such an injustice. Mercifully, it does not require it. We must be better than the Constitution here in Hawai’i, and on Hawai’i Island. We must address the problems of overpriced housing, inadequate mental health resources, and overcrowded substance abuse programs.
The Supreme Court has shown us the way of cruelty. Let us take the way of compassion.
In peace,
Pastor Eric
