The newspaper has an interesting article today about the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands sitting on millions of dollars and producing no housing while thousands of Hawaiians remain on a waiting list for lots the agency is supposed to lease. And the homeless population in Hawaii includes many Hawaiians, especially at squatter encampments like the one at the Waianae Boat Harbor.
While there are differing opinions about the best way for the agency to provide housing — whether to offer leases and loans for homesteaders to build their own dwellings or whether to offer leases for homes that are already constructed — it’s very, very hard to understand how or why an agency tasked with providing land and homes for Hawaiians would fail to spend $30 million in federal funding earmarked specifically for the agency to accomplish those tasks.
It’s also hard to understand how or why its sister agency Office of Hawaiian Affairs sits on hundreds of millions of dollars while so many Hawaiians remain homeless or in need of safer and more modern housing.
It’s almost as if some people want Hawaii to have a massive homeless population.
Honolulu Homeless Crisis 