Show homeless compassion
So it happens again.
Another article with trash and debris snapshots from a population, the homemore population, that has been largely forgotten until they arrive at the front page of your publication.
Safety is cited, but where was the safety measure when they needed an established camp? Where were the people to direct them to safely remove their waste? The establishment of services to service instead of collect on their defeat? The emotional wellness workers to help them work through their traumas? The leaders to lead these communities akin to the mayors, elected officials in the city?
It showed their desolation, their lack of taking care of waste. Yet, the housed have toilets, trash collection, the works of a community to support them. These people, struggling, have little and now they have even less.
If we are to end this situation we need to realize that not everyone will live in established housing infrastructures that we take for granted. That in fact, much of this population’s healing is going to nature to heal. That we meet them there instead of at the degradation of their fallen communities at the beginning of their tents, structures and establish a firm foundation.
Then and only then will we be able to find the solution to this problem — meeting them where they are, not so much where we are in our communities.
Seeing the value does not come so much from roofs provided or food given but a chance to let a people’s story be talked, known.
Then and only then will we be able to find the solution to this problem. These are the stories I wish to see, not the after-the-isolation, lack of support.
Then and only then will we be able to find the solution to this problem. With the homemore, not less.
Z.A. Sonder
Honokaa
Car problem hustle
About a year ago we took my truck in for the annual safety check to a larger sized South Kona mechanic’s shop, the same place we’ve been taking vehicles for years although now under new ownership.
After waiting half a day, I went to pick up the truck and was told they couldn’t give me the safety check because the emergency brake was no good and I had to pay $649 for repairs. I just knew this couldn’t be true so I said no thanks and took the truck to the dealer for the safety check.
Brakes were fine with no problems at all and the tiny crack in the driver’s side mirror was no problem at all. Safety check complete at a fair price. Fast forward a year, truck goes into the same dealer, this time the replacement mirror is a must, plus we have to do both sides together for a cost of $422. No way, so I asked my wife to pick it up and find someplace else to take it while I was off island. (Evidently that old cliché about mechanics ripping off women more than men is true!)
On the way home, my wife decides to stop to shop. Another mistake, as the key decided to stop working all of a sudden. Towed back to the dealer, one can’t simply get another key made, you have to pay the $165 for the diagnosis to tell you to make another key for somewhere close to $200.
In the meantime, the service boss comes and notices the same truck with the mirror and comes over to say the other guy made a mistake and now you can get only the glass mirror for $70 or something. Guess they took pity on us after sticking us for a diagnosis and for a new key. (The old key worked fine when I got home so we have a nice new $360 key.)
So my wife makes the decision to go for it. A few days later when the mirror comes in and it finally gets done for what would have been a nice down payment on a new car — at a different dealer — we’re done.
My questions are:
Are there any honest mechanics that can do a safety check left in West Hawaii?
What are the state rules anyway? Can a mirror have a tiny crack in it?
Why do we pay both safety check fees and license plate fees? Why are they not tied in together like modern states?
Why the hell do we have the Jones Act anyway and why does it cost us so much — another subject for another time.
Ken Love
Kealakekua
