To: Kymberly Marcos Pine, Ernest Y. Martin, Ikaika Anderson, Stanley Chang, Ann Kobayashi, Carol Fukunaga, Joey Manahan, Breene Harimoto, and Ron Menor

Tell Honolulu City Council: Fix Homelessness, Don't Punish the Homeless

To The Members of the Honolulu City Council:

The Huffington Post recently published a story about Honolulu's attempts to keep the homeless out of the view of tourists, thereby implicitly stating that tourists are worth more than the human beings who don't have a place to live.

Rather than focusing on punishing homeless people for being homeless, further criminalizing a nationwide (and Hawaii-wide) issue, the Honolulu City Council should work on solving the homelessness crisis on the island. Don't hide your homeless people, work on solving the issue of poverty.

Why is this important?

Homelessness is gripping the country in the wake of the great recession. The Honolulu City Council is indicating that it'd rather support the Hawaii Tourism Authority than the Hawaiians who have been devastated by the recession. Let's send a message that people come before tourism.