Homelessness is a major problem in Hawaii that is growing exponentially. Our society has changed much from when I was growing up in Hawaii in the 1950’s and 60’s. There were really no homeless people as we know them today. News reports don‘t come close to capturing the brutal reality of homelessness. The poor and homeless really have no voice in our society. This website will represent views on homelessness and poverty from the perspective of the poor and displaced. I’ve been homeless for over a year and currently a resident at the Ka Hale A Ke Olu homeless resource center on Maui. Homelessness is no longer an abstract concept to me, and many others like me.
They say homelessness is not a crime, but homeless are treated like they've done something very wrong and made the shameful “choice” to be homeless. The truth is many people on the street are just victims of an unsustainable, unjust, economic system that throws them under the bus. The rest of society has “no shame” letting them get run over. We all know there is something wrong with the line of private jets at the Maui airport not far away from the tarp covered homeless camps. It makes sense that for a few people to be obscenely wealthy, many people have to be exceedingly poor. Homeless are segregated and discriminated against using Jim Crow homeless laws.
One of the prime dilemmas the homeless have is that most people believe they are being taken care of by government and private programs. While that is somewhat true, most homeless resources really benefit the people who administer and work for the programs. I discovered that homelessness is a business. It is a business with a great public relations department that keeps taxpayers and private donors believing they are doing a great job and that the homeless are responsible for their harsh predicament. In reality, Poverty is created by the type of society we live in and is a man-made failure to take care of each other.
Anyone who is homeless, for whatever reason, is thrown into the same garbage can. Mentally and physically disabled, elderly, drug addicts, immigrants, ex-cons, veterans, and other low income people who become homeless are all pushed through the same small hole. It’s not that these folks don’t need help, they truly do. But, most just need a cheap place to stay because rental prices are out of control and minimum wage is not enough to live on. Many homeless come to Hawaii to escape grinding poverty elsewhere and the local people suffer for it.
In my journey through homeless land, I’ve met many of its inhabitants. They live in camps, cars, shelters, “woofer” farms, NGO “programs”, surviving as best they can. Some are native Hawaiians; others are right off the plane. The poor in Hawaii have to complete with the richest people on the planet for a spot on one of the nicest places on earth. This website is dedicated to telling their story and examining the real causes of homelessness and poverty. We will not be afraid to ask the hard questions people are ignoring. Like the real homeless, this website has no funding, staff, organization, or access to main stream media and we have all the real problems of poverty. It is what it is and will grow into what it's suppose to be. Aloha
"No Shame, A Maui Homeless Tale" is a series of nine articles about my homeless experience in 2014. These articles are published at "Best Thinking. com" and are being combined into a book. The book is not about not having shame being homeless as that is not possible. It is about how our society has no shame treating the poor and homeless so badly and destroying the myth that the poverty stricken are having a good time mooching of society. This is a non-fiction book of what it is really like to fall off the cliff into homelessness. You can read all of my articles by clicking on this link to bestthinking.com
Click on this page for videos and short films related to the reality, causes, and other aspects of poverty, homelessness. We are looking for content that reflects the point of view of the victims of the crime of being poor. We are also looking for content about the real reasons for poverty like wealth transfer, mass media, economic and government failure. We will post links to content we feel is relevant to this website.
Doomtime relates to a period of time predicted by math in the 1970's that will occur before 2050. It is when human population demans outstrip resources and the infastucture to provide them as the global enviroment changes due to human activity. At some point the manmade and enviromental strain of increasing human needs will overwhem the fragile, interdependant human resourse distrubution system and cause a cascading failure in the ability of people to get the resourses they need to survive..Doomtime.
