KAILUA-KONA — After months of planning and discussion, Hawaii County is moving forward with plans to clean up Old Kona Airport Park in Kailua-Kona.
KAILUA-KONA — After months of planning and discussion, Hawaii County is moving forward with plans to clean up Old Kona Airport Park in Kailua-Kona.
Police and county officials will precede the cleanup, scheduled for Aug. 9-10, by clearing the park of several homeless people who reside there illegally on a more or less permanent basis.
Mayor Harry Kim announced in a press release Wednesday afternoon 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 begins Wednesday.
The most pertinent question surrounding the cleanup from the beginning involved where the displaced homeless people will go.
Local businesses expressed concern that the displaced will spill into the Old Kona Industrial Area and down Alii Drive, where the homeless presence already is strong and where many tourists shop and dine.
The county hoped to secure a specific site to which they could direct the park’s homeless. That site, however, never materialized.
The release says Kim is looking for another site, which might come online by the end of the year. It most likely would be on a plot of land mauka of the Palani Road and Henry Street intersection. That land is owned by the Queen Lili‘uokalani Trust, with which the county is negotiating a potential land swap.
The swap, if it takes place, could result in the relocation of 23 microhousing units built in repurposed shipping containers that house chronically homeless people across from HOPE Services’ Friendly Place in the Old Kona Industrial Area.
But none of that will develop before the park cleanup.
“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 release stated.
HOPE Services and the 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 throughout the area and prioritizing placement of homeless who reside in the park based of their vulnerability.
“HOPE Services is doing their very best to house those who qualify in the short time we have before Aug. 2,” said Lance Niimi, the county’s assistant housing administrator.
Niimi further requested anyone aware of or able to offer additional housing solutions for the homeless to contact his office at 961-8379.
“Every bed space helps,” he said.
Email Max Dible at mdible@westhawaiitoday.com.