Solutions for Hawaii's Homeless

A report came out saying that over 200,000 of Oahu's 900,000 citizens are homeless, on the verge of homeless, or are homeless but living with other family. This is not a surprise as most families I know are living in extended type families and the tent cities on the Leeward coast are only getting bigger. Yet what is Hawaii doing about this issue? Nothing from what I've seen.

Creating new shelters to anticipate more homelessness does not solve the problem. Treating homeless as second class citizens does not solve the problem. It is great that there are a few of us who want to make sure some homeless have temporary shelter and food but does this solve anything? No it doesn't. The cost of living is outrageous, caused by excessive outside speculation and of course the availability of land. Oahu's population density is one of the highest in the nation despite having volcanic terrain that cannot even be settled.

At a minimum, a family needs to make $20,000 a year just to pay the average rent. This does not count for food, utilities, clothing, healthcare, and other expenses. The average financial advisor suggests that your rent or mortgage payment be no more than 33% of your total income because of all the other expenses we incur. This means to live here in Hawaii, the average income should be $60,000 at a minimum. This is an hourly wage of $28 an hour. The minimum wage is $7.25 in Hawaii. This difference is huge. Of course the average citizen earns more than $7.25, but they do earn less than $28. The per capita income as of 2003 was $30,441 according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii.