As Waikiki and the broader Honolulu area enter the final stages of gearing up for APEC next month, some are seeing a push of another kind.
"We ask our homeless clients, has anyone been bothering you or giving you a difficult time?" said Paul Oshiro, Waikiki Health Center Care-A-Van. "As far as APEC is concerned we've noticed that there is a push to I guess disperse homeless encampments or populations that have spread out."
"Hi APEC, welcome to Honolulu," said Michael Orchekowski. “What they call simply the bum's rush, in this case it's the bum's shove, they're gonna shove them aside and say hey we don't want you here."
Among the areas feeling the heat is an encampment near the Hawaii Convention Center area.
Marc Alexander, Governor Abercrombie's, coordinator on homelessness, told KHON2 the state, city and county of Honolulu, the Waikiki Health Center Care-A-Van program and the private landowner are "...working together to assist those who are homeless in that area and to take appropriate steps to ensure free and clear access to the public space."
The landowner is public broadcasting, whose CEO told KHON2 in a statement "PBS Hawaii is working on a plan with government officials to offer the campers alternative places to stay and we expect that the campers will move by the end of this month."
The social service agency working with the state and city authorities explains how.
"That outreach worker goes there once a week, offers all of the homeless people services, solutions as well as shelter. How is that working? It's working well, we actually got a 65-year-old woman into the next step shelter," said Oshiro.
For those who won't yet leave...
“Some of the homeless actually have large amounts of belongings. We try to tell them to downsize, not to be so obvious, keep things tidy," said Oshiro.
They say they hope efforts to move them won't lose them from the social service radar.
"Our biggest fear is that they're going to be pushed more into the rural areas and the mountainsides and things like that where they're not able to access services," said Oshiro.
Police say they are not and will not do any sweeps for aesthetic reasons, but both local and federal officials say security zones for APEC will put limits on several areas for the general public.
