Latest / The One Oʻahu Podcast with Mayor Rick Blangiardi / Roy Miyahira on the homeless situation behind Kahauiki Village and a measure known as MH-3

Transcript

Roy Miyahira on the homeless situation behind Kahauiki Village and a measure known as MH-3 · The One Oʻahu Podcast with Mayor Rick Blangiardi

• 0:15
  Welcome to the One O'ahu Podcast.
• 0:17
  I'm your host, Brandi Higa, and this week we're sitting down
• 0:20
  with the city's director of homeless solutions, Roy Miyahara.
• 0:24
  Roy, thanks for making some time for us. Thank you. Brandi.
• 0:26
  Thank you for having me.
• 0:27
  You know, we thought it'd be a good time to get you on because the area along
• 0:31
  the water behind Kahauiki Village looks a lot different these days.
• 0:35
  We saw some stories in the news, but if you could tell us
• 0:37
  what's been going on there. Yes.
• 0:40
  Thank you.
• 0:40
  Brandy.
• 0:40
  I suppose that's been the news for the last couple of weeks.
• 0:44
  I don't go so far as to go back to 2015 as to
• 0:47
  when I first started learning about it, just by looking at video and understanding
• 0:52
  how, the effort from the state, started to cut back some of the mangroves
• 0:57
  because they've seen the number of homeless in that area.
• 1:01
  Again, as a state, we'll see it in.
• 1:03
  The way we see it too.
• 1:04
  Is we have a public safety situation where the individual safety situation and
• 1:09
  an environmental concern, where people who are trying to reside, on a waterway.
• 1:14
  So I know they I tried they cleared most of the mangroves there in 2024.
• 1:20
  Some of the folks that did live there moved over to the other side,
• 1:23
  which is the other side or the city jurisdiction,
• 1:27
  which left us with, a situation where
• 1:29
  we had a blossoming community of homeless.
• 1:33
  When I came aboard, we noticed that,
• 1:36
  last year put some plans together.
• 1:39
  The plans never came to fruition.
• 1:41
  Just because of the timing and the resources that we did not have.
• 1:44
  But lo and behold, early this year,
• 1:47
  we started to kind of fortify those plans.
• 1:50
  Knowing this, there's more at stake here.
• 1:52
  And besides other parts of the parts of the urban, parts of the city.
• 1:58
  And we embarked on a on a plan, that would include the outreach,
• 2:03
  intensive outreach for about 2 to 3 months, trying
• 2:06
  to influence these folks to go to shelter, which we did have space for.
• 2:11
  So we spent a lot of time in doing that.
• 2:13
  But ultimately, we have to understand that for the greater good,
• 2:16
  we have
• 2:17
  to remove these people if they're so service resistant.
• 2:21
  So, we did that with the huge help.
• 2:24
  Colossal help from our state partners, the Department of Transportation
• 2:29
  dealing are played a huge role in helping us.
• 2:34
  I would say liberate these folks from the conditions
• 2:36
  that they were living in because it's really inhumane.
• 2:39
  They had them live there and just, not do anything about that.
• 2:42
  So we started April 15th and did a lot of work in a quick fashion
• 2:47
  and taking some of the learnings that we had from way, way lower river
• 2:51
  and the canal, low storms and knowing how to move logistically through, tons
• 2:56
  and tons of debris in one small area to another area,
• 3:00
  which dlnR again was so gracious to allow us to put it there,
• 3:04
  at the same time trying to break down some of those structures
• 3:07
  which just left us with, some manmade materials.
• 3:11
  But the main thing is to me, we moved people out of that area
• 3:15
  to, again, to ensure that the environment was protected
• 3:19
  and the people were still safe.
• 3:21
  We're still trying to influence them because and move about the city
• 3:25
  to move to shelter.
• 3:27
  We're still sticking with, our thought process
• 3:30
  and to be compassionate with the folks who are there.
• 3:33
  But at the same time,
• 3:34
  understand that this is a public space that has to be protected.
• 3:39
  So we're at the point after about a month and a half where we've just moved,
• 3:43
  we're moving the rest of the debris, which is on the other side of the stream.
• 3:47
  The folks who reside there is in Kahauiki Village is an is operated,
• 3:52
  nonprofit, transitional housing, neighborhood.
• 3:57
  They're extremely pleased not just with the view,
• 3:59
  but the fact that they can live peacefully and comfortably in an area
• 4:04
  and kind of thrive in that neighborhood, when before they always
• 4:08
  had to have their eye open for something that could be a foot in the mangroves.
• 4:13
  So all in all, I think is a successful project, but
• 4:18
  it's not a 100% successful one.
• 4:20
  I feel that somebody can't find shelter.
• 4:23
  That was displaced from that area. Yeah.
• 4:25
  And I know you kind of alluded to this.
• 4:27
  You mentioned taking it all the way back to 2015.
• 4:30
  But what happened where this was finally able to take place,
• 4:34
  where things are finally able to get moving?
• 4:35
  I believe you'll get some reports from folks who might have seen
• 4:38
  it from, from our skyline.
• 4:42
  Because it's a clear view to seeing that two story house that people talked about.
• 4:46
  Yeah, yeah.
• 4:46
  By the way,
• 4:47
  that was lost in the in a canal storm and and gravitated towards Keehi lagoon,
• 4:51
  which did took down very quickly but left us two with an encampment.
• 4:57
  For us to take care of.
• 4:58
  But it came through there.
• 5:00
  It came out also came from a person who I think co-owned
• 5:04
  a a water ski, type of business.
• 5:07
  And they had lost a boat ramp.
• 5:09
  On one of the water ski ramps, maybe about, eight months ago.
• 5:13
  Brought it to our attention, came
• 5:14
  to our mayor's homeless meeting, showed us some tape on it.
• 5:18
  That was part of the reason why we also went in there.
• 5:21
  But when it comes down to it,
• 5:23
  when you see up close to what is happening in those encampments
• 5:27
  and the waste that's going into the water, and the fact that you see them living
• 5:31
  that way, you just have to put your foot down,
• 5:33
  put plans together and execute as quickly as you can.
• 5:37
  And luckily, we had partners like the state doing it with us.
• 5:40
  Since you've gotten in, we've gotten a lot of data
• 5:42
  on just the type of homeless individuals that are out there.
• 5:45
  And what are we seeing currently?
• 5:47
  You mentioned, you know, some people, they're just sick
• 5:49
  and then some people, you know, they need more than just medical care.
• 5:53
  What does our homeless population look like right now?
• 5:55
  Yeah, I think it's, extremely complex.
• 5:58
  Again,
• 5:58
  coming from a different type of industry and not having very much an experience,
• 6:04
  you dive straight into the streets or into the slopes of Diamond Head.
• 6:07
  You get all the information you can by just walking and listening
• 6:12
  and touching and listening and talking more about what we can do for these folks.
• 6:16
  You're finding not only that they have medical issues
• 6:20
  like any one of us could have, but you have behavioral health issues
• 6:24
  that a lot of people look past, and then you get to the normal things
• 6:28
  that most people think, of a homeless person, that they could have
• 6:31
  substance use disorders, layered with things that we all might have.
• 6:37
  Financial instability, financial hardships, family instability.
• 6:43
  There's a myriad of issues that people just don't think about.
• 6:47
  When you think about a person who's homeless and the reason why they're there.
• 6:50
  Yeah. And you're right.
• 6:51
  You know,
• 6:52
  we only see the ones that are kind of,
• 6:53
  you know, the ones running through the streets,
• 6:54
  the ones that have mental health issues, maybe substance abuse issues as well.
• 6:58
  But, you know, with that a lot of attention has been drawn nowadays
• 7:02
  to MH three, and maybe people have never heard that before.
• 7:05
  But if you can kind of explain broadly
• 7:07
  what that is and how that's affecting your work
• 7:09
  and getting people maybe off the streets and the help that they need.
• 7:12
  Yeah.
• 7:13
  That's something that our core team, again, has reinvented themselves.
• 7:19
  Since I've been here, I'm going from just outreach
• 7:22
  and trying to get people after 5 to 10 times to accept services to,
• 7:28
  really trying to move people, I should say, firmly into locations
• 7:32
  and then addressing the folks who really need, mental stability.
• 7:37
  Empty image threes.
• 7:40
  I guess the best way to put it are, as people who probably are in danger
• 7:44
  or danger to themselves or can endanger others.
• 7:49
  That's probably the one two criteria that how we assess people.
• 7:53
  But the process is one cause out there and understand to who they are.
• 7:58
  For instance, part of the urban core, they've seen them maybe five, ten times.
• 8:03
  Outreach, outreach nonprofits have seen them probably 20 times.
• 8:08
  But we're fine to the point where core is taking action
• 8:12
  in having a person like Doctor Ireland who can properly assess that person
• 8:17
  before deciding that we can involuntarily move this person to, some treatment.
• 8:22
  And that would be either to maybe Castle Hospital.
• 8:25
  Queen's our behavioral health crisis center.
• 8:28
  It needs a clinician to be in there to make that assessment.
• 8:31
  So I think it's very humane in that
• 8:34
  we just can't leave people out there in that type of state.
• 8:38
  At the same time, we're doing our due diligence and making sure that we have
• 8:41
  clinician making that assessment before we take them to for some treatment.
• 8:45
  Yeah.
• 8:47
  You know, when it comes to those homeless individuals that we see
• 8:50
  that are drawing kind of the most attention to themselves,
• 8:53
  some people are noticing these people don't look like they're from here.
• 8:58
  We hear of other states sending homeless individuals here to Hawaii.
• 9:01
  Is that actually the case?
• 9:02
  And if so, what are we doing about it?
• 9:06
  Yeah.
• 9:07
  Living in California for a while.
• 9:09
  I never really thought of it that way, because we have people
• 9:12
  from all over the country that can come by bus.
• 9:15
  But when you come back home and understand that it's a long way of a plane
• 9:19
  ride here, that people came here for a purpose.
• 9:23
  I don't think they came here because I don't want it to be homeless
• 9:26
  and live on a beach in Hawaii, but maybe things just not work out when they visited
• 9:30
  Hawaii and want to stay here.
• 9:34
  I like to focus on
• 9:35
  folks who have been here a long time.
• 9:38
  I think 30 to 35% of our homeless population,
• 9:42
  is Native Hawaiian, and I believe we should focus on that a lot more.
• 9:47
  And then those who are allegedly coming to the states
• 9:51
  and ending and buying and saying there are homeless, yes they are.
• 9:56
  They can partake in our services as they can.
• 9:59
  But I like the focus a little bit more on the folks who actually are from here.
• 10:02
  But I do want to add this.
• 10:04
  We do have a reunited,
• 10:07
  program back to the mainland.
• 10:10
  IHS well, this is state funded by IHS, runs
• 10:13
  this program, and I believe we've sent back,
• 10:17
  to a person who's going to receive them by the way, over 100 people so far.
• 10:22
  So the program is alive and well.
• 10:25
  We offer that many times, if that is like the last,
• 10:29
  chance for someone who wants to go back to the States, just to see.
• 10:34
  But again, we had to have a receiver there.
• 10:36
  We're just not going to ship people.
• 10:37
  To a different state, you know?
• 10:41
  And Roy, you've been at the city
• 10:43
  for is it just under a year and a half now and about 14 months.
• 10:46
  Yeah.
• 10:47
  And so where are you before this and what prepared you for this role
• 10:50
  for those who don't know who you are?
• 10:52
  Who I was. Well,
• 10:54
  I was retired about for about six years before, I answered the call to the mayor
• 11:00
  and answered the call to the city to want to, as I say, give back.
• 11:04
  But, get back something that I could probably now provide for the city.
• 11:10
  I've been away for over 30 years from the mainland
• 11:13
  and learned a lot about logistics and operations
• 11:16
  and a little bit of finance, and probably grew up a lot faster
• 11:20
  because of how fast things were coming at me.
• 11:22
  And it took me for some time to understand as to what I could deliver to the city.
• 11:28
  Professional? Yes. Things.
• 11:29
  Some things did help, but I think personally,
• 11:33
  I was a caregiver, primary caregiver
• 11:35
  for about two and a half years, to my wife before she passed away.
• 11:39
  I learned a little bit.
• 11:40
  Know a lot about myself and how you can care for somebody and,
• 11:46
  and how much it would take out of you and how you can kind of rebound.
• 11:50
  And then when I came home, and the reason
• 11:52
  why I came home was to take care of my father, who had Parkinson's.
• 11:56
  So I wasn't able to apply those skills, to help him.
• 12:00
  So I thought that prepared me for a role,
• 12:03
  where I could help out our community.
• 12:06
  Those people who are experiencing homelessness.
• 12:08
  Yeah.
• 12:09
  You know, and I'll be totally honest with our listeners here.
• 12:12
  I didn't know much about you.
• 12:14
  This is our first time sitting down.
• 12:15
  And I'd imagine after hearing that
• 12:18
  the the empathy that you develop is probably pretty unreal.
• 12:23
  How do you think that you've
• 12:25
  connected those life experiences to the work
• 12:28
  that you're doing now?
• 12:31
  I think I'm not done connecting it, but I'm trying to draw on.
• 12:35
  You're right.
• 12:36
  My feeling in that, folks who pick themselves up, there's something in them.
• 12:42
  There's some good in them that they can probably draw on in
• 12:47
  and translate that into something more productive, you know, in their life.
• 12:51
  And that kind of is the reason why I'm doing this, because I hold out
• 12:55
  hope for them.
• 12:58
  So I'm not really sure how to answer that, you know, properly,
• 13:01
  but I feel like everyone has a gift and they should be able to see it.
• 13:06
  And like you said, you were retired and you answered the call.
• 13:08
  I know that mayor is a hard guy to say no to, but why did you take on this role?
• 13:13
  Like, what draws you to this kind of work?
• 13:15
  Do you know anyone that homeless or have you yourself ever experienced this?
• 13:19
  I know a couple people who are homeless and, being in the mainland,
• 13:23
  I did work in the mission sometimes volunteer work in the tenderloin. San
• 13:28
  Francisco and Los Angeles lived in near Skid Row, but it's more volunteer work.
• 13:34
  But, I really have to give it,
• 13:37
  to the leadership of the mayor and his administration.
• 13:40
  That draws me because I was on the mainland watching what was going on
• 13:44
  the city and even through Covid, seeing how it was led,
• 13:49
  by Mayor Blangiardi and then seeing up close that you wouldn't
• 13:53
  want to be part of something where it's, all in.
• 13:58
  Work as best as smart, as hard as you can,
• 14:01
  but make sure that we spread the credit around where it's due.
• 14:05
  Always act as a team.
• 14:07
  And just keep moving forward.
• 14:09
  I love that type of mentality.
• 14:11
  It's.
• 14:12
  Yes, it's a coach's mentality, but that's what really excites
• 14:15
  me and kind of just drives me every day.
• 14:19
  Yeah, sometimes it's hard to see the bigger picture when, you know,
• 14:22
  there's a lot of projects that we have our hands in, you know, even center
• 14:27
  when you look at all the beds that's on crooked closet beds of many flavors.
• 14:31
  Right?
• 14:31
  So there's
• 14:31
  beds for different types of people
• 14:32
  because they really do have different types of needs.
• 14:35
  But for those who think, you know what the city's not doing anything.
• 14:38
  What kind of things have your office done, your department done in the last year?
• 14:42
  You know, like you said, 14 months since taking on this challenge?
• 14:47
  Yeah.
• 14:47
  I think the,
• 14:50
  the coordination and that we've kind of initiated amongst
• 14:55
  other city, city agencies and state agencies and nonprofits,
• 15:01
  health organizations has been probably what we're really good at.
• 15:06
  And this year and I think that's what
• 15:09
  I do decently, because we just can't go at this alone.
• 15:14
  I mean, I find that
• 15:15
  there's always strength in numbers, but when it's coordinated properly,
• 15:18
  everyone has an eye on connecting people to treatment and shelters
• 15:24
  and supportive services.
• 15:25
  You have more than a good chance of reducing
• 15:29
  the amount of people on the street.
• 15:30
  So I think that's what we bring to the table.
• 15:32
  And DCS again, being very,
• 15:35
  public facing type of, department,
• 15:39
  we're always dealing with folks who are actually are in need,
• 15:41
  whether it's through grants or they're elderly and they need help
• 15:44
  with their benefits or identification or just not having shelter.
• 15:48
  It fits to the personalities of Anton Crotty,
• 15:53
  Edward Los Panos, myself and everyone else in the organization.
• 15:57
  So, I'm happy to be, you know, living in that DCS type of department.
• 16:02
  But, I'm everywhere when it comes down to coordinating,
• 16:06
  interacting with most folks. Yeah.
• 16:08
  And I like the way
• 16:08
  that you kind of explain that because there's so much going on.
• 16:11
  Yes, there are homeless people, and we're trying to make sure
• 16:13
  that there are beds for every person.
• 16:14
  But what what's being done to make sure that people don't fall into homelessness?
• 16:19
  Because that's also a function of your department.
• 16:22
  Yes it is.
• 16:23
  Part of our strategy is, prevention.
• 16:26
  Of course.
• 16:27
  I rely a lot again on our partnerships with maybe the little United Way
• 16:33
  who does a stellar job of taking on the thousands,
• 16:38
  100,000 phone calls for folks who are on the brink of homelessness.
• 16:43
  I talk a lot to even DCS, our Work Hawaii team,
• 16:48
  who deals a lot with their rent work programs, job skill development, outreach.
• 16:53
  I love what we do in the city and even the non-profits,
• 16:58
  and I think that is just one good piece of preventing people
• 17:02
  from falling to homelessness.
• 17:03
  You just can also pull your socks up and do a better job,
• 17:07
  you know, the folks, people need help nowadays just because everything
• 17:11
  is changing so quickly.
• 17:13
  And like you mentioned, mayor kind of has that coaches mentality.
• 17:16
  And now they've put something into our computers where every day
• 17:20
  when you log in, you see how many days are left in the administration.
• 17:23
  It's not they were counting down.
• 17:25
  It's a reminder that we need to pick up the pace and we need to get things done
• 17:29
  because our time here is short and so for you, Roy,
• 17:32
  when you are polling you finally, hopefully you get to retire someday.
• 17:37
  What do you hope your goal is?
• 17:38
  What do you hope your legacy is here as the director for Homeless Solutions?
• 17:44
  I come from a background that we we don't think about our legacy.
• 17:48
  Brandy.
• 17:48
  I just try to be a good husband, a good, brother.
• 17:52
  And a good son.
• 17:54
  I think of myself that way because that's what I want.
• 17:57
  I think put on my, put on my, my marker one day.
• 18:00
  But I do think about if we're doing well
• 18:05
  and we're progressing and we can keep a team together like this.
• 18:09
  Sometimes you think about not retiring, but running it back.
• 18:13
  I really love what I do, and I feel that I still have
• 18:17
  a lot more to give to this city, because, again, I've been away so long.
• 18:21
  And if I feel that drive like I do now, there's no reason why I should be
• 18:24
  just retiring in, chasing a white ball.
• 18:27
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 18:29
  Well, Roy, is there anything that we missed?
• 18:31
  I do want to,
• 18:36
  speak to the public and let them know that I like a few things from you.
• 18:41
  When you think about homelessness, because it's so easy to criticize
• 18:45
  and see that one person out there who's, not themselves, for the time
• 18:52
  being, and it's easy to criticize and ask what the city's doing.
• 18:56
  All I'm asking is, in a case like that,
• 18:59
  you leave it up to the professionals if you could to do that.
• 19:02
  Some of that outreach, we will be able to handle it.
• 19:05
  Just please report in to us via our Honolulu 311.
• 19:10
  Or you think you can even call my office?
• 19:12
  The other thing is, I'd like you to stay informed as to what we're doing.
• 19:15
  You're going to see us in whole new.
• 19:17
  You're going to hear about me.
• 19:19
  You're going to want to know me.
• 19:21
  If you see me at a neighborhood board or a town hall.
• 19:23
  I'd like you to come up to me so you can be informed and understand
• 19:27
  what we're trying to do as a city, whether it's on the ground, outreach
• 19:33
  or using technology through our command center
• 19:36
  and trying to connect people to treatment and shelter.
• 19:39
  I want you to know that progress has been made.
• 19:43
  It's been proven in the last years to how many people we've taken off the street.
• 19:48
  People who have never gone to shelters,
• 19:51
  shelters, have been taken off the street, almost 2000 people.
• 19:55
  We do outreach over four, 300 last year.
• 19:58
  People went from off the street
• 20:00
  to just turning their head and saying, yes, I'm listening to you.
• 20:04
  I want to exit homelessness for 300 people last year.
• 20:08
  Our number of people who have gone back to the street has lessened.
• 20:13
  It's almost gone to about 10% when it gets to like a 24 month level.
• 20:17
  So there is a lot of progress being made in reducing
• 20:20
  the amount of people out there.
• 20:22
  Just because, again, we're collaborating or coordinating
• 20:25
  properly with everyone having their eye on the prize
• 20:28
  to reduce the amount of people and suffering on the street.
• 20:32
  Well, Roy, thank you so much for your time.
• 20:34
  Oh you're welcome.
• 20:35
  Thank you Renee. Thanks for having me.
• 20:36
  And like you mentioned, there are a lot of resources available
• 20:39
  if you're looking for help or if you're looking to help,
• 20:42
  you can find those resources any time at the Department of Community Services
• 20:46
  website or the mayor's website, just head over to honolulu.gov.
• 20:50
  Mahalo for listening. And until next time. Aloha.