HONOLULU (AP) – Jim Trevarthen used to teach tourists how to surf on Hawaii’s famed Waikiki Beach.
These days Trevarthen, 62, is homeless after his Waikiki landlord canceled his lease and jacked up the rent, he said. He spends his days reading surfside and figuring out where he’s going to get his next meal, and his nights finding a safe place to rest where he won’t be shooed away by police.
Trevarthen is one of Hawaii’s many homeless people who live on the shores of paradise, but he’s feeling the impact of the city’s ramped up efforts to move its homeless population away from its tourist meccas.
Under pressure from the visitor industry, the Honolulu City Council is taking up a slew of proposals to ban sitting, lying down, defecating and urinating on sidewalks in Waikiki and other public places.
In another proposal, the city may allow its homeless population to camp on Sand Island, a remote, mostly industrial island far from resorts that was used during World War II as a an Internment Camp for Japanese Americans and is home to a wastewater treatment plant and former dump.