Beach life not first choice for homeless in Hawaii

WAIANAE, Hawaii – Bert Bustamante’s family might appear to be camping for the weekend on a pristine Hawaii beach, with kids swimming in the ocean, fresh fish frying on the grill and radio music floating in the air.

A closer look reveals the truth – life on the beach is about all Bustamante and his neighbors have.

Just up the coast from the luxury resort complex of Ko Olina, an estimated 4,000 homeless people spend their days on a 16-mile stretch of what could be prime beachfront property along the Waianae Coast on Oahu’s western shore.

Dinner comes from food stamps, flies circle trash bags, and low-paying jobs don’t provide enough money to move from sand to a house inland.

“This is real life. This is as real as it gets,” says the 48-year-old Bustamante, who has been living in Nanakuli Beach Park since last fall. “Why is life this way? It could be worse. I could be without food. I could be without water. But that’s life.”

They bathe in beach showers and sleep in tightly packed tents with as many as eight other people. But they say their Spartan life in the sun beats the creeping cold of a downtown bed made of concrete.

Some have jobs in recycling centers, restaurants or hotels, but those jobs don’t pay enough to rent an apartment or buy a house on Hawaii’s main island, where the median price for a single-family home exceeds $650,000. Beachfront lots cost millions.

They end up on the beach because of misfortune, drug problems, mental illness or lifestyle choice.

Bustamante admits he has done drugs in the past and ended up on the beach with his wife and nine kids after losing his rented house and job.

Roxy Bustamante, his wife, is the breadwinner for the family, working at a pizza delivery call center and making about $2,000 a month.

She feels like she’s stuck on the beach because her husband needs to watch over the kids, and she doesn’t earn enough to move to a more permanent residence.

“Whatever we had, we had to use it all,” she says. “That’s what brought us here, because we were a one-income family.”

There’s no firm count on the number of homeless people in Hawaii, but there are probably fewer than 10,000, said Kaulana Park, who was appointed by Republican Gov. Linda Lingle in July to head plans to end homelessness.

The islands’ homeless problem reached a crisis in March when Honolulu officials cleared hundreds of homeless people from a city beach park, leading the state to convert a dockside warehouse into a temporary shelter.

A new 200-person shelter is expected to open in November in Kalaeloa, along the coast, which will provide education, job training and other services in addition to beds, he said. It isn’t clear when other shelters will be ready and how many will be needed.

The camps along the Waianae coastline are like a small village in a Third World country, where a basketball goal hangs from the side of a tree and grills substitute for ovens. Children weave secondhand bicycles through an obstacle course of park benches and old trucks to meet up with their friends.

Nearby residents have complained to the governor and mayor, saying they want their beaches to be safe and open to the public.

But the tent dwellers won’t leave, saying this is about as good as it’s going to get for people without homes. Every Friday, they load up into cars and head to a city hall annex to renew their one-week camping permits.

“They think we’re all criminals because we live on the beach. It’s a vicious cycle. I’m just trying to survive, make it to the next day,” says 19-year-old Josh Andrus, who is disabled from a car accident and has lived on the beach for four months. “The only thing you can do is keep your chin up and remember you are in paradise.”

Advocates for the homeless help the Waianae group find jobs, enter rehab or seek psychological help, but the housing that’s available is beyond the reach of people who earn minimum wage, says Kanani Kaaiawahia Bulawan, executive director of the Waianae Community Outreach Center.

“Those who are homeless, who have beach and park areas, are much safer than those who are in the alleys and between buildings,” Bulawan says. “These people … cannot access sanitation. They cannot access food as readily as those that are on the beaches.”