KAILUA-KONA — Dr. Cliff Kopp plans to pound the pavement in the name of homelessness one final time. ADVERTISING KAILUA-KONA — Dr. Cliff Kopp plans to pound the pavement in the name of homelessness one final time. Kopp’s fourth walk
KAILUA-KONA — Dr. Cliff Kopp plans to pound the pavement in the name of homelessness one final time.
Kopp’s fourth walk around Hawaii Island is slated to begin June 12 and is scheduled to end around June 20. He expects the walk, a humanitarian effort to bring awareness to the rapidly expanding homeless population on the Big Island, will span a distance between 250 and 280 miles.
“We treat homeless here like a third-world country,” Kopp said. “I call them untouchables. To me, this is the Indian caste system that you learned about in grade school.”
Kopp, a dentist by trade, has made three walks previously — the last ending at the halfway point because of a leg infection.
His journeys are particularly strenuous because he attempts to mirror the homeless experience as best he can, carrying his belongings on his back and sleeping outdoors to illustrate the plight of a swelling and vulnerable population.
Hawaii leads the country in homeless per capita population at 465 homeless per 100,000 residents, numbers that contributed to Gov. David Ige’s declaration of a state of emergency around the issue last October.
Hawaii County’s per capita statistics are significantly higher, as the 2015 population projection was 196,428, according to census data on Hawaii.gov. The state’s most recent Point-in-Time Count (PIT) calculates the homeless population on the Big Island at 1,241.
Kopp distrusts the PIT numbers and believes they undersell the urgency of the situation in both the state and on Hawaii Island.
“The PIT Count number is the best thing they can do, but they’re completely inaccurate,” Kopp said. “There’s no way the numbers are that low.”
In all likelihood, the homeless estimate offered by the PIT Count is less than representative of the true homeless population, as inaccuracies are inherent to the methodology employed by the PIT in its information gathering.
It’s a fault acknowledged by the very people who conduct the study.
“Homeless people are difficult to reach sometimes,” said Erin Rutherford of Catholic Charities Hawaii, who sat as Data Committee Chair for Partners In Care Oahu during the 2015 PIT study. “It’s hit or miss, but despite criticism, it’s still necessary because we need some kind of baseline.”
Rutherford added some members of the state’s most elusive population live in rural areas, particularly on the Big Island, to which it would be unsafe to send PIT volunteers.
Kopp’s problem with PIT numbers has less to do with low estimates and flawed methodology, to which there is no viable solution anyone can offer, and is more about the types of solutions derived by elected officials as well as state and county departments from the data provided.
Of Hawaii Island’s 1,241 counted homeless in 2015, 82 percent of them, 0r 1,021, were unsheltered. The response by Hawaii County officials was to contract Kona Ka‘u Construction to renovate old shipping containers into 32 micro housing units in the Kona Old Industrial Area. The price tag is $2.4 million.
Kopp, who has designed a proposal for homeless shelters that he said could house much more than 32 for around the same price as the county’s project, said the amount of money being spent is incommensurate with the problem, adding that the county is focused on the wrong kind of housing initiatives.
“They gave some company a private contract for a lot of money, and they’re taking old containers and revamping them on site at that dump,” Kopp said. “My argument has always been that we need shelters. Housing First is not possible. It will never occur.”
Housing First is an initiative prioritizing permanent living quarters for the chronically homeless over temporary shelters that usher a larger contingent of homeless to an environment where outreach can occur.
Susan Akiyama, Housing Administrator for Hawaii County’s Office of Housing and Community Development, said the county is focused on Housing First projects because federal and state funding for homeless initiatives favor those projects more than temporary shelters.
“I’m not going to say in absolute terms that we won’t look at (temporary shelters),” Akiyama said, “but there’s nothing currently in the pipeline.”
Other statewide reaction to the homeless population has included Honolulu passing laws that homeless individuals can’t camp out on sidewalks and can have their property seized if they leave it unattended.
On Hawaii Island, it is illegal to reside and/or sleep in one’s vehicle between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. if said vehicle is parked on public property.
“Basically, it’s legal harassment, and I don’t know what the end goal of doing this is, unless it’s to push (the homeless) into the woods,” Kopp said.
But arguments can be made that some homeless behavior in public spaces is itself harassment, even if not aimed at any one person.
Mattson Davis, the former CEO of Kona Brewing Company and its current landlord, detailed to West Hawaii Today last month several instances of public urination and defecation as well as generally belligerent behavior by the homeless that he’s witnessed in the Kona Old Industrial Area.
Kopp, like many interested parties, has grown frustrated by the lack of progress as the numbers of homeless continue to rise, their plight improperly addressed. And while he gave no indication that his passion or advocacy will fizzle any time soon, the walk he’s commencing on June 12 will be the final one of its kind.
“It’s my fourth time, and it’s my last time,” Kopp said. “I played every gun I got. Every bullet.”
