Homeless in Hawaii Our World


Homeless in Hawaii

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A wise glamorous image as a picture postcard paradise belies

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We've the highest per capita rate of homelessness in the country,

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which is ironic because we have some of the greatest concentrations

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I think it could be a tempest building up and that pressure,

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A surge in homelessness is pushing the system to breaking point,

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exposing an ugly social divide in the Aloha state.

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I think we're one of the stronger communities as far as getting

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together and saying we don't want the homeless in our neighbourhood

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and we need to be strong and vocal and try to do whatever we can

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You can't have a civil society where it's OK for someone

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to defecate in front of Burberry's and wipe their ass on the corner

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I'm sorry, all right, it doesn't work.

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With authorities cracking down on homeless camps,

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there's growing disquiet about criminalising

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You know, we are living in our cultural rights.

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You know, some tell us that we're living wrong,

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As the crisis worsens, a remarkable group of women

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are forging ahead with their own solution.

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Before you leave this place, I will make sure that

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I changed your mind about homeless and houseless people.

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In just a few years, Hawaii has been caught up

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Thousands live rough on beaches, in parks and on streets,

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their lives mired in poverty and trauma.

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Authorities are struggling to contain the spread.

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If you won't give me water, get out of my face.

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To say that we were caught off guard may be only part of the story.

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We were, to a degree, but also we saw an incredible surge,

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It's why it's become our biggest issue.

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I'd say it's attracted more attention, at least

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from my perspective, than any other issue in the last 20

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It's very expensive to live in Hawaii.

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In most cases, people have to work two jobs to pay their rent

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So it's always been expensive, but then when there was a surge

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in costs because there's been an inventory shortage,

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we saw it become impossible for some middle-class people to afford

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Now you had poverty, increased cost of living,

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There was a wave of drug addiction which really fries people's brains

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and that makes it impossible to function in normal society,

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and a lot of those people end up on the street.

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About a fifth of Hawaii's homeless population have recently moved

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Attracted by the idea that life is easier in the island state,

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they often discover a different reality.

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In Honolulu, filthy hovels inside stormwater drains and under

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motorways have sparked panicked alarms over public

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As elsewhere in the United States, here, the average life expectancy

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for a homeless individual is just 51 years old.

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My name is Nick Grube, I'm a reporter with Honolulu Civil Beat,

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and we are an investigative news outlet based in Honolulu,

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I've walked this street several times before,

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It's just continued to grow to where now, as you can see,

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we're walking through the middle of the street right now

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because the sidewalks are covered in people's homes.

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Basically, the city is looking at including this street

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in its sit-lie ban which would mean that all of this will have to go,

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but the question is - where will the people go?

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And that's what the city's been struggling with for years.

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Now they're going to have to pack up and move on,

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The idea is, is that if you've been disrupted,

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it will make you uncomfortable enough to maybe, perhaps,

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make better decisions about your life and accept the help

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that's being offered, because there is a great deal

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The sit and lie laws are controversial, with critics

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claiming that they criminalise the homeless.

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It was along Waikiki Beach that the city first introduced

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its sit and lie crackdown after hotels and other businesses

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loudly complained that the homeless camps were spooking tourists.

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A lot of people have ideological and emotional blinders on that

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If you kiss on the tourist industry, there's a huge economic cost that

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will create more poverty and will reduce the tax base which,

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by the way, homeless services are dependent upon.

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Even though they've cleared out, they come back.

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Layne Goodall says she's on a mission to keep her community

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We have laws in Hawaii that state it's illegal to live on the streets.

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And we have this state of lawlessness right now.

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With the help of other local residents, she patrols the streets

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of Hawaii Kai, looking for any signs of the homeless.

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So again, you see the post-it sign there now for private property.

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As soon as you see one tent go up, the community needs to call

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the police, call the city, call the state and get

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Once you have one tent, then two tents, then you're outnumbered.

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When homeless camps began springing up in local parks and bushland,

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residents began worrying about property values and the risk

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of brush fires engulfing their million-dollar homes.

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The knife, and he plunges after this man...

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Like many locals in Hawaii Kai, Lane views the island's

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A lot of the people here are one-way tickets from the mainland.

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Word of mouth is kind of spreading and people on cell phones and social

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media now - a lot of the homeless people have Facebook pages.

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And so, you've got this underground movement of the homeless

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and the squatters and the freeloaders, but everybody

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You can't have society where you just have one factor that

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Hawaii's homeless explosion isn't confined to its urban centre.

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One of the biggest reasons we did this today was because this bridge

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is actually a flood zone and it rains a lot in Hawaii.

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So when the water comes down, we don't want people to get hurt.

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Most of the people here have already left and the rest scramble

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to gather their belongings and leave to avoid trouble with the police.

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So you see it going all the way out to the water and then you see

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There's maybe about five or six camp sites.

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Spreading out into the nearby mangroves, this camp was extensive

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and several young families were living here.

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For young homeless outreach workers like Casey, who try to get families

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It's really hard, especially because these kids go to school

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and their classmates know that they're, you know,

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None of those caught up in today's sweep seem interested

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Do you want to stay with these friendly folks?

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OK, we'll see you later then, minus the bike.

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It's not against the law to be homeless.

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So we can't arrest people for no apparent reason.

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It gotinfected and I went to the doctor, and the doctor put me

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My name is Heather, I'm the community outreach RN at IHS.

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I could not believe that these people were walking,

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talking and functioning, eating and able to walk

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Wounds that we never saw really in school or in the hospital

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because they're really big and infected and abscesses,

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The homeless are the people that have the least political cloud,

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-- The homeless are the people that have the least political clout

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so they get forgotten too often, until the system begins to crash.

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We are going to get you into the room and do

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I think the biggest frustration is that you are a physician

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who really wants to see their patients get better.

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It is like this horrific Groundhog Day of sorts.

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That occurs every two weeks with these individuals,

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because they just are not able to access or have those determinants

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of help with their social care, to be squirrelled away once

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they leave our four walls and they suffer, they fail

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and they come back, battered and beaten and broken.

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Queen's Medical Centre is on the front line of Hawaii's

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Seeing hundreds of patients every week.

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Some of them costing more than $1 million a year each in medical care.

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What do you do when you got some individuals who are struggling

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greatly, who need our compassionate support, but who also

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are threatening the entire health economy of our state?

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In order to get to the heart of an explosive problem,

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As a practising emergency room doctor, Senator Josh Green

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understands the grave health risks of homelessness and he is proposing

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This is going to be the first time that we are going to have a hybrid

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programme, that is both seamless and integrated.

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Treat homelessness as a medical condition and allow doctors

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to prescribe housing for the homeless, paid

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Get people into homes and save billions of dollars.

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These resources are already in the budget.

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But it totally flips how we use them, so we can actually avail

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ourselves of a lot of housing very quickly.

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If we do not, we will see the problem grow.

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They could get much worse if we do not have a game-changer.

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While prescribing housing could be a game-changer,

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the average price of a home in Hawaii is around US$700,000

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Amidst Hawaii's housing crunch, there is a growing push to recognise

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Hello, my name is Twinkle Borge and I am the leader here.

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The name means refugee, people of the land, the caretakers.

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How you live is who you are, that is how I feel.

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The recyclables, put it away where it belongs.

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This is no ordinary homeless encampment.

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Anyone who comes to live here must sign a contract

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Amongst them, every resident must contribute eight hours a week

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Each section will have their areas to concentrate on, to rebuild,

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So like, they have decided to put fences in, as a community,

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go and help strengthen your walls and what not.

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If rubbish needs to be put out, you will see our vehicles coming

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The encampment is built from tarpaulins, tent

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poles and recycled goods, but there is little

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So we usually use these palettes for rebuilding your flooring,

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So when it rains or anything you're not in the water.

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When you do get high tide here, you notice the ocean,

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this water can come as far as that tree.

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So these palettes play a big roll here.

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This cohesive community is remarkably organised,

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divided into different sections, each led by a captain.

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And when it comes to the little ones, it's automatic.

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We automatically protect the little ones.

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Our children, our safety, our rules, everything is based

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With the safety of the children paramount, there are stringent

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rules and a three strikes and you're out system.

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This is the donation card, we have a donation thing.

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Twinkle's adopted son, Adam, helps to enforce them.

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Or if it's out there and it comes in here,

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you're automatically out, completely.

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I will come back, Twinkle will let me know, she will give me

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the papers of the violations, I will go and read it to them

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And then if it happens two more times, we get three chances,

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right on the third chance, I come in and I kick you right out.

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She has been my inspiration for a long time.

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I don't even need to be living like this.

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I can go straight into a home, but I choose not to.

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I choose to stay here because I love the people and I love

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The resilience of this remarkable community is admirable.

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The only electricity is from those lucky enough to own and fuel

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a generator and the nearest toilets are hundreds of metres

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With water pipes cut off to the camp, residents need to fill

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bottles and cart them from a camp at the nearby marina.

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It is one of the many daily chores that keeps this place going.

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How come the Hawaiians are struggling here?

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You came here, you took our land from us and left us like that.

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Just an hour's drive from Honolulu, the reality of life for these

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Hawaiians is vastly different to the one that mainland

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Twinkle became homeless 14 years ago.

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Creating this community has been a long struggle.

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But I fell in love with someone who I thought

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would never fool around on me and I became so depressed.

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I had all this money that was saved, everything, to find out

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that this person wiped me out of my money and everything.

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Twinkle firmly believes that home is where the heart is.

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For me, homeless is someone who lives in a van, who has no home.

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But I live in a tent, that is my home.

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I have had tour groups that come in and many times

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I straightout tell them, before you leave this place,

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I will make sure that I change your mind about homeless

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and how homeless people that live out in the elements as we do.

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They are amazed at what the people do here.

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They are amazed because once they pass these double poles,

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Buoyed by the success of their community, Twinkle

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and her team captains have big plans for the future.

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The community wants the right to lease the land where they live

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and to build more durable homes with solar power and

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They also want fences and security cameras to keep them safe.

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But the camp's future is far from guaranteed.

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Behind closed doors, there is an ongoing discussion

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between those who want it dismantled and its residents put into shelters

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and those who want it recognised and preserved.

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Basically, we're just homeless in our own homes,

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Many locals regard the camp as an eyesore

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Amidst concerns that it is growing too big.

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So far, despite Twinkle's pleas, Hawaii's Governor has held back

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from making any commitment to letting them stay.

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I believe we have over 500 and I said we cannot afford more

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We can fit maybe 300 comfortably, but we usally stay

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Twinkle says she will do what it takes to save her community,

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but she is confident that she can convince her detractors.

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We have a little squabble, I am not looking at it

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I don't know why they are afraid of working with us.

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As Hawaii grapples with its homeless crisis, there is also a sense

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of hope that enterprising solutions can be found to

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Twinkle believes her camp could serve as a model for other

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houseless communities across the islands.

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She says it is not only time for new ideas,

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If they want to learn more about the situation

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and come up with a solution, come and sit down with us.

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Because the answer lies here, not there.

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Not in their office, not in their books, here.

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We have got some very warm weather indeed coming up over the next few

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days, with the high-pressure firmly in charge of our weather.

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That's going to bring very warm, if not hot, weather to most

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