KAILUA-KONA — After months of planning and discussion, Hawaii County is moving forward with plans to clean up the Old Airport Park. ADVERTISING KAILUA-KONA — After months of planning and discussion, Hawaii County is moving forward with plans to clean
KAILUA-KONA — After months of planning and discussion, Hawaii County is moving forward with plans to clean up the Old Airport Park.
Police and county officials will be precede the cleanup, scheduled for Aug. 9-10, by clearing the park of several homeless individuals who reside, or camp, there illegally on a more or less permanent basis.
Mayor Harry Kim sent out a press release Wednesday afternoon explaining that a no-camping policy, which has been part of county code for years, will now be much more strictly enforced.
Police have a mandate to more closely monitor activity at the park to make sure homeless and others camping illegally permanently vacate the area.
The enforcement will begin Wednesday.
“All belongings and housing structures in the park must be removed by that date,” the release read. “This is aimed at improving this facility as a community park.”
The most pertinent question surrounding the homeless exodus from the park from the beginning involved where the displaced homeless will go.
Local businesses have expressed concern that they will spill into the Old Kona Industrial Area and down Alii Drive, where the homeless presence is already strong and where many tourists shop and dine.
The county had hoped to secure a specific site to which they could direct the park’s homeless, one with running water and access to other services. That site, however, never materialized.
The report states that Kim is still working toward such a site, which might come online by the end of the calendar year. It would most likely be on a plot of land mauka of the Palani Road and Henry Street intersection. That land is currently owned by the Queen Liliuokalani Trust, with which Hawaii County is negotiating a potential land swap.
The swap, if it takes place, could also ultimately result in the relocation of 23 micro housing units built in re-purposed shipping containers that currently house chronically homeless individuals across from HOPE Services’ Friendly Place in the Old Kona Industrial Area.
But none of that will develop before the park cleanup beginning next week.
“Homeless people camping at the park are being instructed to leave, and a limited number of spaces at homeless shelters are able to receive them,” the report stated.
HOPE Services and Hawaii County Office of Housing and Community Development, among several other organizations, have been conducting outreach in the park. They are taking inventory of housing space across the area and prioritizing placement of homeless who reside in the park on the basis of vulnerability — looking at placing the chronically homeless indoors first.
“HOPE Services is doing their very best to house those who qualify in the short time we have before Aug. 2,” said Assistant Housing Administrator Lance Niimi.
Niimi further requested anyone aware of or able to offer additional housing solutions for the homeless contact his office at 961-8379.
“Every bed space helps,” he said.
