Homeless community is back 4 years after clearing of Amala Place. What will Maui County do this time?

KAHULUI — When government crews and police officers cleared out the extensive homeless community along Amala Place in 2021, it didn’t take long for some people to return. 

“I never left,” said one man, who declined to give his name. “I just went deeper in the bushes.” 

Now, a community of people once again are living in decrepit vehicles, tents and makeshift shelters along Amala Place — though on a smaller scale.

And once again, Maui County is forced to decide how to handle what is deemed by government and many residents as a public health and safety hazard along the busy road, which leads to popular Kanahā Beach Park, and is near the Kanahā Pond State Wildlife Sanctuary and a wastewater treatment plant.  

Four years ago, the Amala Place sweep landed Maui County in hot water for what the Hawai‘i Supreme Court deemed a violation of residents’ constitutional rights.

But as recently as last month, videos showed public works crews and police officers clearing out rubbish with the help of a dump truck and bulldozer. County officials say this time is different. They’re getting consent from individuals to remove trash and keep the area clean.

“I can’t comment to what happened in 2021, but what I would think would be perceivably different is that this is a consensual removal of something that the owners are deeming as rubbish,” said Laksmi Abraham, county communications director. “And it’s being respectfully removed from the area as a courtesy to the camper or the individual.”

But some community advocates and attorneys worry the county is veering too close to the actions it took in 2021. 

“If it is true that the county is going in and claiming that houseless residents’ property is trash and then using a dump truck and a bulldozer to destroy said property, that would be very, very alarming, very, very concerning, and we would definitely consider taking some sort of action,” said Wookie Kim, legal director at the ACLU of Hawai‘i, which represented clients kicked out of Amala Place in 2021. 

The ongoing issue on the stretch of well-traveled public road in Kahului — at a time when homelessness in Hawai‘i ranks the worst in the nation and the median home price is just shy of $1.4 million — highlights the struggle of finding long-lasting, affordable housing.

ANOTHER CLEANUP LOOMS

In 2021, Amala Place was lined with cars, camping tents, tarp shelters, shopping carts, pallets and other belongings. There was public outcry for the county to do something, and Maui County and the state Department of Land and Natural Resources agreed that it had become a public health and safety hazard.

“It’s not compassionate to enable people to continue living without basic sanitation,” then-Mayor Michael Victorino said at the time.

In June 2021, the county removed 41 abandoned vehicles in the area. On Sept. 1, 2021, the county announced that it had plans for a massive cleanup and was working to get the 53 people living there into alternative shelter. In two days, crews removed 54 derelict vehicles and 58 tons of solid waste.

Four residents sued the county in October 2021, saying they hadn’t gotten enough advance notice or a hearing to explain their circumstances and challenge the legality of the sweep. 

In March 2024, the Hawai‘i Supreme Court ruled that the residents had constitutionally protected interests for the personal property that the county destroyed in the sweep, and that they should have received a contested case hearing. A Maui judge backed the higher court’s decision in January. 

All that set the stage for another struggle when people started to return to Amala Place. On Tuesday, there were about two dozen vehicles along the road.

One woman who declined to give her name said she had been living on Amala Place for over 10 years after separating from her husband and ending up on the streets. When the county kicked everyone out, she said she found housing at the temporary pallet-home development in Wailuku that ran out of funds in 2022. Eventually she made her way back to Amala Place. 

“I knew everybody was going to be back down here anyway, so that’s a chance to take,” she said. 

The woman, who’d previously held a job but “gave it all up because my body started getting sore,” said she hates living on Amala Place but can’t afford to rent. She said she also was scared to return to Pu‘uhonua o Nēnē, the state-run temporary tent shelter by the Kahului Airport where there have been a handful of confirmed deaths. 

The man who declined to give his name said he stuck around even after the 2021 sweep because he likes to fish in the area. He works framing houses, but he says his jobs don’t pay enough for the high Maui rents.

“We’re human, too, but they treat us like dogs,” the man said. “The way the cops come up here and shine a light on us, and ‘you know, you guys gotta move.’ Where are we going?”

Lisa Darcy, founder of the nonprofit Share Your Mana and a Hawai‘i Public Housing Authority board member, said after the 2021 sweep, people slipped out of sight. 

“People scatter into all kinds of places and the goal of course is to not be seen,” Darcy said. “As soon as the public can see them or the police, and can complain about them, they’re in jeopardy again. Their safety, their routines, their ability to keep their possessions are in jeopardy.”

Darcy said it’s extremely important to meet people “in the space they consider home.” She said she goes down to Amala Place a couple times a week to talk to people about their needs. She was there on April 23 when she filmed a series of Facebook Live videos where she confronted police and county crews using a bulldozer to remove belongings. She was concerned about how the county was deciding what was trash and who it belonged to, saying that the tossed items included a cooking setup where one resident made food for about 25 people at night. 

“They call it a cleanup,” Darcy said. “It’s not a cleanup. It’s a sweep.”

Abraham said crews go down to Amala Place at least once a week to clear out trash, and that it’s “just a regular outreach activity” where people are asked if there is anything they would like to voluntarily throw out. 

The people who go down to Amala Place include Maui County homeless solutions coordinator Naomi Crozier, Department of Public Works employees and the Maui Police Department’s Critical Outreach and Response through Education (CORE) unit. Abraham said this has been going on for years, as far back as under the previous police chief.

“We’re not removing anybody from the area. We’re not removing vehicles. We’re not removing personal property,” she said. “We’re offering a courtesy of a removal of basic trash items.”

She added: “Nothing is taken without the camper’s consent.”

Looking at Darcy’s video, Abraham said, “I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary which would lead me to believe that they were going in there to do a sweep as we would call it. It was just standard picking up trash to help them out.”

When asked if a bulldozer was standard for picking up trash, Abraham said crews started using the heavy machinery after a worker was poked by a needle while collecting rubbish.

People are not given paper notifications of the weekly trash pickups, Abraham said, adding: “This is just kind of a regular occurrence that they know they’re coming through.”

The county also does not notify or coordinate all the trash pickups with “community partners,” but they bring them in if residents express specific needs. 

Deputy Managing Director Erin Wade, who is helping facilitate the county’s response to homelessness by different departments, said the situation along Amala Place is reviving some of the same issues as in 2021 over the safety and health of the people living there as well as county workers and the public who use the road. 

“Our top priority is compassion and care for the community members that are in the vulnerable situations or choosing to remain unhoused,” Wade said. “But in addition to that, we of course have the responsibility for the safety and sanitation of the general public, as well as the protection of the environment. So we’re at that moment where we’ve now convened a multi-departmental team to identify a balanced approach to addressing the conditions.”

Wade said the county is doing outreach with Amala Place residents and also will be working with community service providers on a plan. 

“Outreach has been ongoing, but when we are beginning to set up a time for an ultimate cleaning of the entirety of the space, that’s when we’ll convene a full meeting out in the field,” Wade said. “And we haven’t identified a timeframe for that yet.” 

The goal “is ultimately to find housing and services for every individual that’s there, and then ultimately to be able to have a clean and restored space,” Wade said.

She added that there are new rules in the wake of the Hawai‘i Supreme Court’s ruling. County attorneys also are part of talks to make sure the county is following the law. 

While the county says no one is being forcibly removed during the trash pickups, taking away people’s belongings was at the heart of the legal challenge in 2021, and Kim questioned whether there could truly be voluntary consent now.

When police are on scene, he said, “that is an inherently coercive environment” where people know they risk citations or arrest. Kim also found it “shocking” that the county was not providing notices to residents. 

“It’s a longstanding fundamental principle of our legal system that before you deprive someone of life, liberty or property, you must provide due process, and what that means is notice, meaning written notice, and an opportunity to be heard,” Kim said. 

The Maui County Council is considering a bill that would outline rules for how the county removes personal property in public spaces. Council Member Gabe Johnson, who proposed the bill, has said he is opposed to sweeps but that if the county is going to do it, policymakers can at least set guidelines. The bill has been heard three times in committee and is expected to be scheduled for a future meeting. 

HELPFUL OR HARMFUL?

Darcy said she isn’t surprised that some people who were forced to move from Amala Place in 2021 without housing, health or transportation options eventually returned to Amala Place.

“When you don’t solve the problem, the problem doesn’t go away,” she said. “People are not getting out of this poverty space in any sort of a healthy timeframe, and … all the manmade systemic failures are going to just indicate that people are going to return to a place that they know and remember.”

On the county side, Wade also acknowledges that “just removing someone from a space isn’t going to solve their homelessness problem. The critical component of this is certainly finding and connecting them with the right services and the right housing space for their individual needs.”

But Maude Cumming, chief executive officer of the nonprofit Family Life Center that does weekly outreach at Amala Place, said some good came out of the situation in 2021. She remembered two longtime clients who agreed to accept services after they were kicked out of the area, and both are still housed today. 

“If a cleanup action results in that kind of positive outcomes, would you maybe say that it’s worth it? Because 10 years of effort didn’t yield anything until they were forced to move?” Cumming said. 

Cumming said everybody on Amala Place has been offered services, and they have the freedom to choose to accept it or not. She said her goal is to end homelessness by putting people in housing, not manage homelessness by providing people services outside. 

“It’s sad to me that people think it’s more compassionate to leave people out there and bring portable toilets, whatever it is, to them,” Cumming said. “I don’t believe it’s very compassionate to have people living right next to a sewer facility, to have them out in the dirt, to have them have to use the bathroom in their tents in a bucket. … I think it is more compassionate to avail yourself of the services.”

Family Life Center works with Ka Hale A Ke Ola to get people housed. Executive Director Sue Sadecki said the most important part is whether people are ready to come into the shelter. A common complaint from residents about shelters is that they have too many restrictions to get in, but Sadecki said they try to keep the barrier low.

People can still get in even if they struggle with alcohol or drug addiction — they simply can’t do it on property. Violence is taken “very seriously” and can result in a warning or expulsion depending on the incident. Convicted sex offenders and arsonists are not allowed. 

Sadecki said “I wish I had an answer” on alternative solutions for areas like Amala Place where people keep coming back once they’re forced out. 

“There’s unintended consequences as a result of a lot of things that we do,” she said. “Generally speaking, in our own lives, I think this says, ‘OK, if we don’t think this is working, let’s all get together and look at what are other opportunities for us to lift this community.’” 

Sadecki said “at the end of the day, what really matters is that pathway to housing, and so we’ve got to look at those obstacles.”

She said it’s easy for people to jump to conclusions and question why someone who’s unsheltered can’t just get a job and get off the streets.

“We’ve got to be able to talk about trauma,” she said. “We’ve got to be able to do it in a meaningful and supportive way that doesn’t further traumatize people also. So it’s a dance, and I believe that it’s a hard-fought dance, and I believe a lot of people really don’t understand what that dance looks like.”