Vulnerable People and Places Blog

     When one pictures Hawaii, they will most often think of paradise- beautiful beaches, swimming with dolphins, massive hotels with beautiful views, the perfect tourist destination with endless amounts of money coming in- but something most don't consider is the number of people who live in this paradise without a place to call home.  There are an estimated 15,000 people in Hawaii who are homeless, with 1,500-2,000 of them being chronically homeless. Although Native Hawaiians only account for about 10% of the population, they make up 51% of the homeless population. Over 4,400 of these people live on the island of Oahu, which is the largest tourist destination of the Hawaiian islands. Tourism is a major contributing factor for the homeless population in Hawaii, especially with the majority of vacation rental units being owned by non-residents.  Another major contributing factor for the amount of homeless people in Hawaii (which ties in closely with the tourism)...

Where Have We Seen This Before? Calling for a ban on public camping, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler has begun what might be the most significant, expensive, and massive action against homelessness in the Portland Metro Area in recent years. His plan includes the building of massive, government-sanctioned homeless camps that will service up to 150 — perhaps even up to 500 — homeless people at a time. This plan was met with both words of support and vitriol, some claiming that this is the best way to get people off of the streets of the city, and others arguing that it is inhumane to essentially force people into camps. This latter group has often referenced internment camps, like those seen in Nazi Germany, or even those in our own, national history, evoking the Japanese internment camps during World War II. This begs some questions: What precedent is there to Mayor Wheeler’s plan, and how accurate is the comparison between his camps and internment camps? The National League of Cities, in t...

You NEED an Address? It's incredibly difficult to do much at all without a home address,  as nowadays it's much more than where you live- it's a personal identifier. For example, in the past one may have had to provide mail with their home address to the IRS to prove their identity when filing taxes. And it becomes tricky to open a bank account when you don't have that home address. Some may accept a P.O box, or not at all. For the homeless community, this becomes a struggle when it comes to finding places to get any form of income- as some jobs require a bank account or a home address, or certain services may require both- but if you're homeless, it's incredibly difficult to find services that can help you fufill all these things. However, in the UK there is something that may come to the U.S in the future, but it's something to look at and think about- A service called ProxyAddress provides stable addresses to those who apply to get one for f...