Honolulu City Councilman Rod Tam says Mainland cities are exporting their homeless problem to Hawaii.

“A lot of these homeless people are coming from the Mainland and the cities in the continental United States are sending these homeless people a one-way ticket,” said Tam, who represents Honolulu’s urban core where many homeless people live.

Tam says he goes out of his way to talk to those who are down on their luck and has found a surprising trend. “I ask, ‘Oh where are you from?’ And they mention certain cities on the continental United States. San Francisco, East Coast, even as far as New York City.”

Trent Rhorer, the Human Services director for San Francisco says while the city does pay for the transportation for homeless people to reconnect with their family in other states under its Homeward Bound program, the city has never given a homeless person a one-way ticket to Hawaii.

“We only have funds to provide bus fare for citizens and the last time I checked there’s no bridge to Hawaii,” Rhorer said.

Even so, Tam is convinced Mainland municipalities are engaged in the practice known as homeless dumping. “Well the promotion is that Hawaii is summer all year round,” he said, “and so therefore they can live out in the open doors.”

The Institute of Human Services operates three homeless shelters in Honolulu and Executive Director Connie Mitchell has only come across a handful of cases where a homeless person was paid to come to Hawaii. However, she says homeless people often come to the Aloha state on their own accord.

“There a lot of people who are in fact saving their money,” she says. “Or when they get a check that’s sufficient to get a ticket they themselves have decided to buy a ticket and come. Many of them are not aware of the cost of living here and arrive very surprised.”

Mitchell says 30 percent of those who stayed at the IHS homeless shelter for men last fiscal year were “recent arrivals” to the state. She says IHS often counsels homeless transplants to move back to their hometowns where friends or relatives can provide some sort of a support system.

“We're really encouraging people who come and don't have resources to quickly realize that maybe the best thing for them is to save up some money and get on back to where they came from.”

According to Hawaii Department of Human Services spokesperson Toni Schwartz, any homeless person can receive government assistance if they intend to live in Hawaii and go through the application process.

Tam says while it might be difficult to bar the practice of homeless dumping because of Article IV of the U.S. Constitution, the legal basis for freedom of movement, lawmakers need to examine the issue carefully.

“We want to care of them,” said Tam of out-of-state homeless, “but we don't want them to become a trouble for our society.”

Andrew may be reached at apereira@khon2.com or ph. 591-4263.