Friday, July 11, 2014  Homelessness as contagion: Bills 42, 43,
& 44 before Honolulu's City Council                --George
Orwell, "Politics and the English Language," 1946  I've attended
the last two City Council meetings on bills to criminalize
homelessness, one in late June and the other on July 9. Of
course they are not called bills to criminalize homelessness,
rather they merely "relate to public sidewalks" and to
"defecating and urinating in public" in Waikiki and in
Chinatown. (Another bill extends the range to all of Oahu.) At
the first meeting, I listened as testifiers came before the
Council to speak for or against the bills. It struck me then
that two central arguments were being made: the first, by the
side in favor, was based on the economy. Business people spoke
in favor because they are losing business when homeless people
camp in front of their store fronts. The second side said very
little about the economy, except that homelessness is the
symptom of a bad one; instead, this side's argument