Welcome to a special Think Tech Hawaii panel presentation on addressing Hawaii's cost of living and homelessness, finding meaning after the pandemic. I'm Mark Shklav, the host of this special program. Today our panel will discuss the cost of living, housing, and homelessness in Hawaii. How homelessness affects the Hawaii economy, what our future looks like, and what can be done to improve the situation after the pandemic. Our four panelists are Nolanon, Christine Kamp, Connie Mitchell, and Sarah Lynn. They are extremely knowledgeable in the social, economic, and governmental perspectives of these issues. Our program goals are for us to have a good discussion, to share ideas, to listen to each other, to participate with Aloha, and ultimately to help Hawaii find meaning in the future. Our first panelist is Nolanon. Nolan is a graduate of the University of Hawaii and was the founder and principal planner of the Nui Nui Associates. He's now retired but still very active in the community. Nolan is a prolific and passionate op-ed writer and has articles in the Garden Island newspaper about finding meaning for Hawaii after the pandemic are the genesis for this program. Thanks to my big brother, John Shklav, for introducing me to Nolan. I've asked Nolan to set the stage for this program. Nolan? Thanks for having me on the second time on Think Tech. It's been an honor and a pleasure. Yeah, so like you said, we started out being, talked too much, op-ed writer, venturing my opinions out there and some other people printed them. And I've had good and bad reactions to them, just like we'll have today as promised by our other panelists, we'll have agreement and disagreement. So the finding meaning for Hawaii kind of started out, you know, when I was feeling really funky in the early months of the pandemic and I'm saying, what's going on? I don't usually feel like this. And so I started reading more as a lot of us during this downtime. And I read this book called Finding Meaning the Sixth State of Grief by David Kessler, who collaborated with Elizabeth Kubler-Ross on, you know, the five stages of grief that's a classic. And I kind of found that many of the feelings about having somebody died that you're close to was what I was feeling. And you know, it was the denial, the anger, the bargaining depression and not yet the feeling of acceptance of what was going on. But Kessler ventured forth that says there may be a sixth stage to grief that will allow you to heal after the loss and that sixth stage was finding meaning in the life of the person that you have lost. So we went on from that and, you know, we ventured forth opinions that says, how can we find meaning after the pandemic? And you know, we said maybe we can tackle the three biggest problems that Hawaii faces and in my opinion again, those were homelessness, affordable housing and overtourism. And I ventured forth the idea that says what if the solution to one would be able to fund the needs of the other two? And I ventured a crazy idea that says in this time that we're 98% less tourists than we used to have, 10.4 million in 2019 and trickles now, that maybe we ought to think that instead of opening up the floodgates 100% that we ought to think about putting up barriers to tourists, economic barriers that would be able to provide funding to solve our greatest problems. In my crazy thoughts, this would raise $10 billion of new state revenues. Incidentally, the state budget this year is $8 billion and you're expected to fall at these $2 billion short. So Melissa, can we have a slide on number one, please? OK, so we're coming up with the finding meaning for Hawaii and my thoughts are going to be centered around, can we eliminate the problem of homelessness out of the. One of my favorite quotes is by Soren Kirkgard, and he says life is lived for us, but understood backwards. And then once I revisited this quote of mine, then I started thinking about my thoughts about grief. And now I think that, you know, I'm not really experiencing grief about the loss of a life that I used to love before COVID. I am because my life has not died. Instead, COVID has put it into a state of a medically induced coma. And so my life is not dead, but it's also not alive. And I miss it terribly, but I cannot grieve because it's not dead. My thoughts are, you know, it's like if I can't grieve, then the only thing left for me is hope, focus on hope. The only thing that you're doing on is focusing on the future. And the future is certainly uncertain. So I've outlined the three greatest problems I had talked to an extent about overtourism and then, you know, trying to put up economic fences. I'm sure Christine is going to do a lot on an affordable housing issue, but I'm going to skip over a lot of this talk about the three greatest problems. But just to touch on it, in 1959, we had 250,000 visitors to Hawaii. And it was the number four largest industry at the time. By 1976, tourism had become the number one industry in Hawaii. And last year, we brought in 10.4 million tourists into our state. The question is, did the state of Hawaii really want 10.4 million visitors? And I say, absolutely. They did everything they could to be able to achieve that number. And I asked the second question is, do they want the 98% less that we have now? Yes, because all of the things that they did, they put up all the barriers to avoid 100% infection rate to thousands of deaths. And so we have less visitors. If you wanted visitors, we wouldn't have had any of the restrictions. That we have now. This is a picture of my brother, Rodney. And it just points out that homelessness affects us all. I'll tell you that what happened is that when he was in his early 50s, he had a bad marriage, he had a bad divorce, and a series of events that caused him to retreat into the valleys of Kalamalao. And he lived there independently, not getting any public welfare. Until we, as a family, distributed his share of the value of my parents' house, who had passed on.  And it was about $50,000. Mine was gone in an instant because I was sending three kids to college. And then he said, well, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. And then he said, wow, I've got enough for the rest of my life, which I thought was interesting. When he died at age 58 in the valley, he had about $200 left. So I think the hitting made his life adjust to his money. And he said, I made a prediction and I made it come true. So I'm going to ask the question if Hoy has the will to eliminate homelessness. The reality is that we continue to have a significant population, and we're expected to have more. Question is, whose job is it? Some people say churches, some people say families, non-profits, and the state. In my opinion, the state has the primary responsibility. It's got the power of taxation, and it's got the power to interpret the laws and the laws that regard losses of individual freedoms in respect to the public good. And my opinion is they have the responsibility, which they have not necessarily been exerting all of the responsibility. Next slide, please. In my opinion, homelessness should not be an option. Anybody that has been on the streets or in a campaign situation where it's miserable, minutes seem like hours, and it's street is just not a good place. In my opinion, again, that the homelessness can be separated into categories. One is the unable, and the second is the unwilling. If the state exerts its responsibility to be able to help those the least fortunate among us, they have the power to do so, but along with that power comes with great responsibility. With $10 billion of new revenue, the question says, what if we had enough money? Money always seems to be a barrier. $10 billion can buy $10,000, $1 million homes, or three quarters of one real system. So with enough money, what would we do with it? I think that the state has the responsibility and the ability to raise the money. But at this point, I don't think that they should be the provider of those services, that perhaps they ought to be providing money to those that are able to do a better job than their history has shown. Am I nearing my time there? Yes, you are. You're almost Paul. Okay. Well, next slide. Let me go to the last one then. Is our state government willing and able? You know, just like we categorized the homeless, is the state willing and is the state able? I think that if we continue to have homelessness, there is a thought that says that the intent is to have homelessness. If we eliminate homelessness, that's a different intent and a different result. Okay. Nolan, thank you. Our next panelist is Christine Kemp. Christine was instrumental in creating today's panel. Christine is the president of Avalon Development Company. He has earned many accolades for her leadership and serves on several community boards. Her current focus is finding opportunities to educate the public about the land use policies that greatly add to the true cost of living in Hawaii. And I've learned a lot just from talking with her. And she also wants to encourage policies that increase the supply of housing. Christine's insight in these areas is deep. Christine, please. And Nolan, thank you for setting the stage as it relates to the state's role in providing opportunities for eliminating homelessness. What I want to focus on is on the provider side and the issues related to, you know, supply of housing. Because we have issues related to homelessness and that can be related to mental illness and other situations that just providing housing alone can't solve. But what I do want to talk about is from my perspective, what we can do. And I know that we're all talking about all the negative impacts of the pandemic. And at this point, we're in the, we're knee deep into the pandemic and we don't know where the bottom is going to be. But we have a lot of hope that next year it's going to get better. Tourism has just opened yesterday and, you know, we hope that it will be smart tourism that's going to keep us safe while our economy starts to grow back again. But what I want to talk about is cost of housing. Cost of just living in Hawaii. And when I think about homelessness, it goes into housing, supply of housing, and then also what prevents people like me, developers, builders, what prevents us from building more housing? And it's really not a discussion about housing, but it's discussion about policies. We've done it to ourselves. We're so protective about our land, our precious Hawaii, that we've put all these guardrails against building more housing. Housing can be built. I can tell you what the nail is going to cause, how much lumber is going to cause, what the appliances will be, what kind of carpet it will be. The houses, we know what the cost of housing is going to be, whether it's going to be a one bedroom or a two bedroom. What we can't figure out and what is very expensive, because when you don't know, there's uncertainties, and then you have to add on factors for that risk. And what we can't assume is how long it's going to take to build housing. Let's, for example, the affordable housing, which everybody says they want, affordable housing at the lowest level, right? Those at 30% to 60% of median income, where there's not enough of, they're going to build that in Kailua, where there isn't a lot of affordable housing options. And yet the community buckled down under pressure from the neighbors who didn't want it. And now you can't get the housing there. That could have been a shovel ready project in the midst of the pandemic. But I don't want to talk about that. I want to talk about the silver linings in a pandemic.  Why? Because in a good crisis, everyone is worried and they all want to do something. All these policies that caused us to have slowing effects of building housing or even stopping housing altogether. This is a pandemic where everyone is now focused.  But in this pandemic, the lens has shifted. What are we going to do? Things are dire. So I come from the construction and building industry. That's an industry where it's very volatile, right? It goes up and down, boom and bust markets. But this is the construction industry is the one that's been holding us together during the shutdown because they were considered essential workers. And construction industry could also be the ones that can be providing the jobs that are necessary to get us out of the pandemic and have a better impact, build more housing. But before we can even do that, we need these great people during this crisis who are trying to do something, shift their mindset and say, what can we do? This is a crisis. Can we galvanize together to solve an issue? It starts out with trying to address the homelessness. It starts out with trying to address providing housing. It starts out with trying to build workforce housing. But what causes them not to get built? Policies that restrict it. So my view is this is a great opportunity for us to look at those policies and galvanize the policymakers, galvanize the community who have been staying silent to speak up and tell people what they need. You know, I don't have to be on this panel and have a bullseye says that all these policies are wrong. But I choose when you ask to speak about the issue, I choose to step up because I feel that it is our responsibility. To educate others that it's the policies that creates the barriers to housing. It's not the construction costs because we can address construction costs by building smaller homes. But it's the land that needs to get zoned. It's the permitting that either gets permitted or not permitted. And it's those people, the very few vocal minority who are not educated and what really needs to happen, who galvanize to stop these projects. It is upon us to speak out and make sure that our policies are changed as it relates to building housing, because they will do two things. Address costs of living in Hawaii and address the next economic, the gap in the economic output that we need to address while tourism gets built back up. And I happen to now go on record to say we need tourism because we can't just drive the local economy on the same money that's here. We need outside. We're no longer an exporting economy. We don't export anything. And for us to grow our economy, we need new monies coming from outside. And what we're selling here is sun surf sand, the beautiful safe Hawaii. Wow, that's a lot to take in. Christine, thank you. Our next panelist is Connie Mitchell. Connie is the executive director of the Institute for Human Services, where she has focused on ending homelessness for over 14 years. Loven into her efforts to end homelessness is a strong passion for social and environmental justice. Advocacy for cross sector collaboration, which we're doing here. And an openness to creative and thoughtful solutions, which also, I hope, we can come up with as we keep talking. Connie has agreed to share her unique viewpoint, and she also has a PowerPoint to present. So Connie, please. Thanks so much for having me be part of this panel. I just feel very honored to just share some of my thoughts as I've been listening to both Nolan and Christine. I just really want to say yes, yes, you know, to so much of what they've already said. You know, I don't know whether it's good or bad, but, you know, for 14 years, I've been working on this issue of homelessness and just really trying to figure out, you know, what we can do. And when I first became executive director, I thought, OK, let's really try to end homelessness and make it happen. But little did I know that there was so much behind homelessness, you know, 40-someone years before when Father Claude Dutille started IHS. Homelessness was really, really different. You know, we kind of back then had people, if there was a single mother that was homeless, usually they had worked before, but it was maybe a bad relationship. And they were, you know, found themselves not having a home anymore. If somebody could just get the person back working and giving them a job, they could probably find some place to live that they could afford later. But today, there's just so many more people that I think if they're a single mom, some of them haven't ever worked at all.  The mental health system back then was, you know, one that could still get people into treatment.  Not so much anymore. And, you know, the other drugs that came into play back then was mostly alcohol, maybe even like maybe for cocaine, but marijuana. But today we have this methamphetamine addiction that has gone on at this epidemic that has gone on for so many years. It has just drained so much money out of our community. And it's just really a plague that we haven't really got our, you know, hands around in such a way that we can really feel like we know what the end is. They're streaming, but it's just not the same as some of these other substances have come along. So, you know, I kind of started my property thinking, well, what do I want to say? I think, you know, we're going to be in the process of rebuilding our community. And it's got to have a lot of community meaning, you know, next slide. You know, there's a lot that is about not just the people and the buildings, but it's really about whether we have a spirit of community, whether we care about each other. So this was just taken from the newspaper just a few days ago.  I just heard this morning was 80,000 people, 85% of the renters are behind on rent versus 95% before COVID, gross domestic product, the amount of income to the state has dropped 42% when they took that snapshot in time. And the visitor industry prior to COVID had so many people coming in just like, you know, what was described earlier. And now, you know, it's a turn. Next slide, please. I think we have to recognize that this is a tsunami of sorts. You know, it's both, you know, a, not just an economic one, but it's an existential one, I think. You know, we have to ask ourselves, how do we want to rebuild our community and what is going to be a part of it and what's not going to be a part of it anymore? You know, as Christine was mentioning, there's so much need for housing. Pre-COVID, I'd say easy, 30,000 units are needed here. We have not really kept up because of the policies of the past, you know, to really continue building the housing that was needed. So we're just way far behind, you know, and the other piece that we're wrestling against is the unemployment that was less than 2% before COVID. And now we're one of the highest in the country. It's incumbent upon us to know that moving forward, all these people that are, you know, really housing insecure right now, they're going to need places to live. And we need even more so affordable housing after COVID. I don't even know when after COVID is going to be at this point. It seems like it's going to be. We need to retool our economy to create higher paying jobs. A lot of the people that, you know, I work with, many of them are working, but it's really hard, you know, to make ends meet when the housing costs are so much. If it takes like 50% of your income, then there's or more in some cases, there's a lot of deficit that individual households have to deal with. We have to give young people a reason to stay. I think a lot of people are deciding not to have much better in case elsewhere. This is an opportunity right now because COVID has leveled the playing field a little bit, maybe, and maybe people want to stay closer to home.  That's why this night, I just thought it really captures for me what we're up against. When I think about community and what it means, like I said, it's not just the people, although that's the definition. I took this right out of a victory. It's it's really us having a feeling of fellowship with other people, caring about each other. That to me has to be a part of the solution, because earlier the question was whose responsibility is it to solve the problem? I'm just telling you right now, nonprofits cannot solve it by ourselves, you know, and government cannot even solve it by itself. And, you know, so I think we really need to think about how we're going to blend all of those to make new partnerships. I want to talk about these values, you know, inclusive diversity versus a quick fix for the homeless. You know, when we talk about the homeless, we talk about them as separate from us, different from us. In reality, they're people that are brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, mothers and fathers. And we really need to think about inclusive diversity, meaning everybody has something to bring to the table.  Nobody doesn't have any work. We have to take responsibility, you know, versus what I call deliberate indifference or enabling two different ways that people deal with situations with homelessness. I think that we need to say it is our responsibility if there are people in our community that are homeless, we have to find solutions. We also have to, you know, you know, not just want to take them away and I don't want to see it. You know, so many people I get calls all the time of people wanting to solve the problem in their neighborhood. I don't want to see it and I understand businesses really need to have an environment where, you know, people can actually, you know, be able to do business. But I think we also have to know that we have to come up with solutions that really see people as you also. And then there's the people that enable to me, you know, just giving, giving, giving, but never asking something of the person that needs to change. They have to make a different decision. And I think we have to help people get to that place and tell them have those hard talks with them, you know, that you can't continue doing this. The third thing is recognizing our connectedness instead of having self interest, you know, disguise as civil, protecting civil rights. I'm a psychiatric nurse by training. And so I really feel, you know, like, when I see people who are mentally ill, I really want to help them. I want them to get the treatment that they need. But so much of the time, I feel like it's blocked because people think they're protecting people when they want to say, I don't want treatment.  And the last thing is forgiveness and invitation to wholeness versus condemning and alienating people. And I think that when I put up there, because I think we need to think about how we want to deal with the folks who have offended, have been incarcerated, and if they come out and they're trying to, you know, reboot their lies to try to help them instead of just putting up barriers to them. Next slide, please. So this is my slide to affirm what Christine just said, we got to have an housing and we have to have it now and we have to have different kinds sometimes. So I say, you need to, you know, plan and come and have a commitment to preserve existing some of the existing housing or refurbish rehab it and convert them into affordable housing or maintain them as affordable housing. And I really want to affirm what Christine said about how every community has to have a plan. You cannot say, Oh, build the affordable housing over there. Another part of the island, you have to really have diversity in your community and the only way you're going to do that is if you have housing that can accommodate people of all economic levels. And then we need to think about other things I have a couple of pictures here of just these tiny homes, you know, and we also need to think about, you know, public assisted living. I happen to see a lot of older people who are becoming homeless and I think we really need to think about how we're going to serve that particular. Next slide please. I think, you know, we need bold behavioral health strategies and I just want to share three quick ones here. We need a campaign to treat methamphetamine and all these substances. We have to have a lot of meth use, we have to have a way of aggressively dealing with that. Next one is about treatment and diagnosis of mental illness, and really creating that as a venue if they're going in for an emergency evaluation should have the ability to treat them right away. And the last one is about court ordered treatment for people on release from a psychiatric hospital. We need to have a way to keep people on their medications, which we've lost. The last one is about transforming, you know, our economy through technology. Everybody needs to be literate in technology. And, you know, people coming out of jail in prison, people who are you're recovering from homelessness always feel like we got to get them using the computers. So, you know, almost every job now requires you to use the computer. And then of course for our families, the children need access to internet, and also the things that we, in order to do their education, the whole school. So that's all I have today. Thank you. That was quite a bit. And that was good, good insight. And actually you tied together a lot of things that have just been said by Nolan and Christine. Our final panelists today is Sarah Lynn.  Sarah is Governor David Igay's lead policy advisor for housing. She's responsible for helping to drive the governor's affordable housing initiatives and serving as his liaison to the private sector to nonprofits, government stakeholders in Hawaii's housing community. Sarah can tell us the state's strategy on housing issues raised today. Sarah, floor is yours. Thanks for having me here and I really appreciate hearing everyone talk about, you know, the different contributions, whether from, you know, a private citizen standpoint to, you know, an industry that is one of the few bright spots right now while things are closed, the construction industry, and also just really appreciated hearing, you know, Connie is very balanced and thoughtful way to look at what is a, not just the problem with the one shot solution, which I think is very easy to often over simplify. But wow, so many really interesting and compelling thoughts here, you know, whether it's Nolan talking about, you know, finding meaning in the silver lining in this or in the same vein. So I'm looking for, you know, a look at policies and shifting of a mindset, you know, to really figure out is this going to be the crisis that that really makes us all pause, you know, and, and just that one of that one image you shared, Connie about an existential tsunami, really struck with me as well. And one thing to recognize at least as it relates to rethinking our economy and tourism is that it's such a large part of our of our economy it's not necessarily going to go away but I think the thing that we need to be cognizant about is that this is the opportunity to really be serious about education and this is a topic that certainly ties into housing because you can't have, you can't have more housing, or sorry you can't diversify your economy without you know all the resources to take care of them you know good schools good housing affordable housing, but you also we need to find ways to raise incomes and a purely service based economy is tough to do that with. But the thing that we're facing here is something similar to a lot of other places as well this whole idea of over tourism. The Hawaii Economic Association just had a conference about this and talk to some experts from you know Cornell School of Hotel Management, and every place is looking at this as a reset whether it's you know, Ireland off of the coast of Spain or even New Zealand, kind of looking at what are some creative ways to not just look at, you know the marketing of tourism is just purely PR marketing come to see us but it's for years and years tourism has not been run as you would run. It's a private business like it's been run where you take where the profits are taken out the profits aren't reinvested into the asset and the asset here is our people are our state or you know our cultural resources are environmental resources so that's really an opportunity for us to kind of rethink how can we how can we reinvest what does come into the state after this back into the into the asset and continue to make it better. And as for you know what we're trying to do for homelessness and affordable housing in general, but the governor from the beginning of his administration definitely recognize that affordable housing. There just wasn't enough we needed more options and so he set a goal when he first took office of trying to build 10,000 and complete 10,000 new units by 2020. For a while we were looking at that thing are we going to hit it are we going to hit it. And the governor put together a small stakeholder group of the most prolific developers and nonprofits and advocates to talk about some of these policies what were the things that could be streamlined to help to help make projects go just a little bit faster. And I'm proud to report that that group came out with some really good recommendations over the years, whether it was just kind of speeding up approvals, you know, through de cab or, or if it was adding more, adding more funding to the rental housing fund. But those are things that, because we've been able to kind of look at those things over the last couple of years, I'm happy to report that we're going to actually exceed our 10,000 by 2020 goal and I think we're going to be more closer to 12,000 completed by the end of this calendar year with more in the hopper, which is great. Another part though is that I think Christine would agree that we've kind of got most of the low hanging fruit already. The difficult part now is that you know if we want to go vertical or build you know more densely in certain areas we need to figure out the infrastructure for it infrastructure meaning how we're going to get the water there how we're going to get the source to be big enough. So we have a lot of electrical infrastructure as well. And the difficulty not to sound like a bureaucrat is that we have to, you know, partner and work well with with the city and County of Honolulu and the other counties on this as well because it's got to be everybody kind of working together, and figuring out what the timing of everything is and so an infrastructure also you know is can be very disruptive involves you know digging up. You know digging up roads and putting in new lines so that's kind of the next major obstacles figuring out now that we've done the low hanging fruit. How do we prioritize certain areas to have the greatest bang for our buck. And so one strategy that is being employed by the state is looking at for example on a while who the EVL a copa llama area. This is the area right around Costco where you have a lot of concentration of both you know large parcels of land in the form of command me as schools and castle and cook on one end and then on the other end you have a really large concentration of state owned properties, whether it's owned by HPHA, or we will be a civic center area. I do know that, for example, HHFDC and the TOD council is working here to prioritize infrastructure planning for that area, not just to make the 30 acres that is owned by the state go, but also to help enable down the line the private entity privately land to go. So just in that one area is EVL copa llama area where we're where we're investing in a infrastructure master plan. The idea there is, you know, for those 30 acres of state owned parcels there that currently have 8,000 units on it, you know in the next 10 years I think we could definitely triple that to 24,000 units and so looking opportunities like that and figuring out how do we make those things go. What kind of processes can we do you know to make the approvals faster. We're looking at that thing but I do, I do hear what Christine is saying that you know it needs to be faster and in some ways yes we have done this to ourselves you know we love our INA, you know we love open space but I think what's missing from the conversation and the opportunity maybe that the pandemic provides is to talk about these things in more stark terms. It's really about the trade offs right.  I think those are the kinds of things that we don't really hear talked about whether it's, you know even clean energy. So if you don't want to have wind farms in your neighborhood then then that's okay but what is what does that mean that as far as what your are going to be, or you know does one neighborhood get wind farms, another gets solar, things like that I think we really do need to talk about in stark terms what are the trade offs we can't save everything. But what are the things that we as a community agree that are important that are worth saving. I guess lastly the thing that I wanted to talk about again about what the opportunity is. Sadly, I think that it will be a while before we see tourism come back right and the economy fully come back. And so you're going to see things like shopping malls that are going to be really empty. I mean, certain shopping malls right now route, you know across the entire state whether it's on Maui or, you know, in, in, was that show, you know ward warehouse just went kaboom you know. I think what you're going to see is, is an opportunity to possibly figure out how to retrofit and make more mixed use out of those facilities, because they're going to be empty shells. So what can the opportunity for me would be you know what can we as a government entity or, you know in partnership with the county figure out like okay if if we're going to make greater mixed use out of these parcels. What can we do to kind of grease the skids and you know should we have a conversation about that as a community to figure out like that, you know in when we're mall you're going to have a tower there now because maybe that's the best use of the airspace there. And I think that the government's contribution is to figure out how to zone that property well and how to figure out how to get all the infrastructure there it's help the private business, get what it needs to get done. But I think that you'll see much more mixed use, you know things kind of like what we're seeing go up around Alamoana. They don't all have to be, you know, million dollar condos they can be affordable housing but we have to kind of figure out how to package the incentives for a builder to to feel that it's worth his while there. That's kind of my take on things you know I do think that we are as a state trying to do and contribute during the pandemic as we can. We do have the rent relief program that we stood up with cares money $100 million to help with back rent and future rent up until the end of the year pushing really hard to get that money out right now and we've received like overwhelming number of applications I think 20,000 applications for a program that really is only meant to to help 10,000 families. And I do think that if you look holistically at what the state is is trying to do around transit oriented development on each of the islands, you know, wipe the HPHA the public housing authority, you know is looking at what it can do with its lands in Hilo, and also on you know Kawai and Maui so I think that you're starting to see the state entities that do have a lot of land figure out how to use their land a little more efficiently. And you know my hope is to just try to facilitate that conversation more, but I agree with everyone here that there is a lot of opportunity here and look forward to the discussion. Well, thank you. Thank you, Sarah. I appreciate your point of view, and it's funny what I've heard from all of you, something similar. We have to sit down and think who are we. And who are they mean, we have to do some introspection and maybe that's what the pandemic is providing for us. We have about 10 minutes left. Each of you to give me a couple, couple minutes on your thoughts, starting with Nolan on on where we go from here with this issue and and Nolan you know one of the things that what one of the things that you talked about was prioritizing the homeless population and I don't know if you want to get into that but your your your thoughts and where we go. Thank you. Thanks everybody enlightening. You know, one of my heroes is Andrew Cuomo from the governor of New York and he said that you know we ought to be thinking about not how we can go back to how our lives before the pandemic but how can we make it better. And certainly, we ought to be starting the conversation now, in order to impact the future, and the conversation is so wide and it needs all of the input, especially with people like yourselves. We got to have the conversation. One of the things that we were talking about is the homeless and then you know priority prioritizing that. I know Connie's IHS has a triage program that they're looking at Chinatown. My thoughts was that the first targeted population should be taking our minor children off of the streets. You know that you know they don't have a choice. A lot of them are abused. They are parents that have not lived up to their responsibility. And some of my ideas is that existing structures like hotels that are going to be in trouble, because of the decrease in tourism as it stands, could be purchased and provide for people like our youth or things like that. The cost of money now is such that a couple could be in a hotel room for about $1,200 a month, including meals provided by the restaurants on site. That certainly reaches any definition of affordability. Put a roof over the head until the transition periods can be over and then move on from there, but we need to start the conversation now in order to impact the results later. Okay, Christine, next to you. What are your thoughts and you know one thing, you know you talked about changing policies and again, or not being afraid to talk about these things, speaking out so please take it. I want to respond to what Nolan said about the SRO single room occupancy. I'd like to resonate that thought among the community because it's one that's, you know, we need to have one. We can't just rely on the shelters is just not enough. The idea, however, of having resort or hotels in tourist district filled with SROs with mental health problems, and people who are, they're not going to make the best face for Hawaii. And so I'm not sure if I can support the hotel use, but I do support the idea of SROs. And I think that that's a room where government can intervene. We can build it, we can bring some nonprofit to be the sponsor of it, where government funds can be leveraged with community funds to build SROs and I absolutely believe that will help our economy. You know, we manage about two million square feet of commercial space and about 1000 units. You don't know how much we spend on the end and pass on to our businesses for security and clean up after the homeless people. If you can add all of that up, I'm sure businesses will pay a tax to house these homeless people away from their front door and their properties. And so it's one of those things where I think the pandemic should create a superpower by the government to say we are going to build an SRO here. I hope it's not in the tourism area. I hope it's in areas where there will be mental health services and drug treatment services. Maybe it's coupled with that. The idea is that the time has come where we need to make hard choices. There's been enough discussion enough studies. The time is short now. This is a pandemic where we can say there's a sense of urgency and we no longer can just wait for the low hanging fruits which Sarah has done an amazing job for the governor. If there's an effective area within the governor's administration, it's been Sarah Lynn and Denise Matsubara and what they've been able to accomplish for building housing. But it's not enough. And it's not going fast enough. Thank you, Christine. And also, you know, you, you talked about the economy and homelessness and how helping homelessness can help the economy. And they're not, they're not two separate items. They're, they're, they're linked and what we have to recognize that and maybe we don't recognize it. We put a distinction and, and Connie, you know, what, what are your thoughts?  And you deal with perceptions. And, you know, who are they? Who are we type of thoughts? So what are your thoughts about the future after the pandemic? I really love the idea of, you know, doing more SROs, you know, across the island in different places. And I think there also is a place for it in Waikiki.  And I think we can do some closer so they can even walk to work. Maybe the short of that, I really need for people to focus on providing treatment. We can save so much money. We can save the state so much money, you know, if we could get people back to work, people who have the chance to actually recover, you know, and really become contributing citizens, and they are there. I also believe very strongly that a lot of our folks who are low level offenders, you know, who are being released, you know, from public safety, they have an opportunity. If given the opportunity, they would choose to work. They just go back to the street and criminal behavior because there is nothing for them. We have to make the pathway to being a contributing citizen a lot easier for people so that they can choose that. I think we put a way too many barriers, but I love what you have said. Can I ask you a question, Mark? Sorry.  And they just put these barriers because they want to keep it safe for the residents, but they need to be employable, and they become homeless, and maybe they go back to crime. So I'm hoping that there will programs for people I'm looking for those low level criminals. Maybe there's an amnesty for them. Wipe the slate clean so they don't have a record, just because they were, you know, they had a misdemeanor that they shouldn't allow that to be a permanent record. It's also like bad credit. It should wipe away in five years or something so that they can start all over, because right now you have a record you can't get a job, you can't get a home. I mean, these are the factors and causing homelessness for a lot of people. Yeah, Connie. Thank you. Christine, thank you for the questions now. You'll be happy to know that not everybody says this is the total responsibility of the government. It sounds like everybody that's talked today, said talked about the community and individuals and basically internal philosophies but where, where are you for the future with the government after the pandemic with homelessness. So, you know, as a Kiki Okaina, who born and raised here, you know, went away and worked on the mainland educated on the mainland for college and then came back. I'm a long hauler I'm a lifer here you know I'm here despite the, you know, the cost and the price of paradise, you know, thank goodness I have, you know, a parental support network, you know to help babysit kids once in a while kind of thing, but I suffice to say that, you know, I do come in part in my background from the private sector and then I came into government because I wanted to kind of walk the talk I was a journalist before, and a co founder of civil beat, you know, before coming to government. And I wanted to, you know, see how hard it was to change from the inside and I could tell you it's really hard. There's just a lot of, you know, entrenched thinking. But at the same time, I government is such a part of life and big here and and is, you know, through regulation or through, you know, things that that were started with well intentions, you know, like government here needs needs to be a part of the solution because they are currently part of the problem sometimes.  You know, this is the way that we all who we forward and come together and say well what are the trade offs. You know I'm happy to save this Vista for you or this open space or you know not put this solar project in your backyard or not put this affordable housing there but then you know what is the other sacrifice or contribution that you can make to our society. And I think that that's a tough conversation but you know it's got to be had and government needs to be part of it because we're both part of the solution with funding and and and you know permits and things and approval but you know we also have to kind of get out of the way a little bit sometime. Yeah, you know, I think all the cards are on the table. I think we've, we've thrown them out there, and people have, you know, people have to listen. The folks have spoken. And we have to continue this discussion. I'd like to thank our panelists today Nolan on Christine camp Connie Mitchell and Sarah Lynn, they represent the greatest assets of Hawaii. We've been passionate about finding meaning for Hawaii. Now, and in the future, after the pandemic and the pandemic has created this discussion in a way it's made us think about it. A little bit deeper and it's given us this opportunity. So, let's continue this discussion. Let's help each other find the true and beneficial meaning for Hawaii in the future. Aloha, everybody.


Hi, I'm Portville Tellier. This is K9 Tacoma. We'll be doing a ride-along today for National Police Woman Day. With the Pasco County Sheriff's Office, I am in our community engagement department. What that entitles is, I am here to help foster relationships between the Sheriff's Office and the community. We attend various events throughout the community, and we also help with some information on crime prevention and putting out those resources to help the citizens in our community. I'm also a part of our K9 team. I have a K9-assisted therapy dog. His name is K9 Tacoma. And with that, we go out to incidents where it could be traumatic for individuals or children. And K9 Tacoma will sit there and let people play with it and pet him and interact with him to help them get through the tough time they're getting through.  With the Sheriff's Office, we like to go above and beyond our actual duties. We want to be there for our citizens to help them through anything they need help with when it comes down to mental health or even substance abuse. We want our citizens of Pasco County to know that we have their back and we support them in any way we can when it comes to mental health or substance abuse. We just left our local fast food restaurant. This is a great opportunity for us to be one-on-one with our community to build that relationship and let them know that we're here for them. We like them to be able to approach us and feel safe coming to us and let us know that we're here for them. We also like to give out resources to people that they would not be able to receive if they were not in contact with the Sheriff's Office. So this concludes our tweet-along. I hope you enjoyed seeing what I do in community engagement. Also, how our assisted therapy K9s benefit our Pasco County Sheriff's Office.


St. Lucia and Martinique continue to advance cooperation to strengthen cross-border security between the two territories. Following the eighth session of the Franco-St. Lucia Joint Security Commission held in Fort de France, Martinique, on December 14, Ambassador, His Excellency, Francis Etienne, and General William Bacquet led a delegation of gendarmes officials to St. Lucia on January 27, 2023. Prime Minister, Honourable Philippe J. Pierre held an audience with Ambassador Etienne and General Bacquet at the office of the Prime Minister. We have to protect our borders and we have to ensure that commonality doesn't thrive because what happens with me can happen to you because we are extremely close. So we welcome that cooperation. During the exchange, General Bacquet formally notified the Prime Minister about the delivery of a shipment of forensic materials to help improve capacity at the St. Lucia Forensic Science Laboratory. I will strengthen and I will reaffirm my will to give you support with material. So today I come with a gift of 100 kilos of forensic material for forensic studies and weapons. But together with this we have training sessions. The Director of the St. Lucia Forensic Science Laboratory, Fernanda Henry, has welcomed the donation of forensic materials. The donation from the Zhadamchi National consists of a laboratory hood with some forensic consumables. We intend to use the laboratory hood for our new crime scene units as well as the consumables will help us in our continued work with forensics, day-to-day work, forensic biology, forensic chemistry and other sections coming on, specifically the firearms unit. This cooperation with the French started in 2021 and since then we have benefited significantly from their generosity and their expertise as well. A small group of us from the laboratory went to Martinique and spent four days with them looking at scientific techniques and so on. So this really is a continuation of that collaboration. While concluding their courtesy visit to St. Lucia, the French delegation also toured the Forensic Science Laboratory. Ambassador Etienne, General Vaké and the Gendemeur delegation also interfaced with the High Command of the Royal St. Lucia Police Force and officials in the Ministry of Home Affairs during pre-arranged engagements with a view to coordinating training opportunities for the Marine Unit and pursuing forensic cooperation between the two territories. From the Office of the Prime Minister, Rihanny Isidou.


up to. Be bold, courageous and brave because of people of this land, our Scotland demand and deserve nothing less. Thank you. I call Neil Findlay to be followed by Derek Mackay, who will submit the last speaker this afternoon. Mr Findlay. Thank you, Presiding Officer. It is an honour to be returned to this Parliament to represent the Lothian region, and I welcome all the new members to Parliament. The Labour Party has much thinking to do, but we also have many causes that need to be championed in this Parliament and, more importantly, championed in our communities. For my part, I intend to continue the campaign and work that I started in the last session. Since Parliament went into recess, there have been major developments in many of those areas. I think that all of us would have been humbled to see the result of the Hillsborough inquiry. That verdict was not just justice for the families in the great city of Liverpool, but it will inspire class justice campaigners across the world who are seeking justice. In the back of Hillsborough, the call for an inquiry into our grief and the arrest of the police in the minor strike grows louder and louder with Tory MPs writing to the Home Secretary just today demanding that. Proportionately, more minors were arrested and convicted in Scotland than anywhere else. Many victims of a miscarriage of justice. Post Hillsborough and all that we know now, the Scottish Government should stop obstructing the legitimate calls for a Scottish inquiry into those cases. In the last few weeks, we have seen 250 blacklisted construction workers sharing 10 million in compensation, but there will be no justice until all those victims are paid out and the guilty directors of Carillion, of Balfour Beattie, of Custain, of Keir, of Langerhawk, of Sir Robert Recalpine, of Skanska UK and Vinccia are brought to justice in the courts. Until then, the Scottish Government and public bodies should stop handing out public contract after public contract to these guilty companies. Week in and week out, when more and more evidence of the Scottish links to the under-club cover policing scandal, the Pitchford inquiry must be expanded to take in Scotland, and if it is not, there is a moral obligation on the Scottish Government to hold a Scottish inquiry. It will not be acceptable that English and Welsh victims will have access to an inquiry, yet Scots will not. How on earth is that standing up for Scotland? I will continue to campaign on behalf of those courageous women who have to live with the chronic pain as a result of surgical mesh. They have been let down by the Government, by regulators, by manufacturers and by some in the medical profession who enjoy a far too cosy relationship with the all-power pharmaceutical industry. Today's debate is about priorities in my region and during the election, the priorities of the voters were health and the public services in general. How can we create a modern preventative healthcare system that tackles health inequality when NHS Lothian itself has a black hole of £90 million? What will happen to patients in my region if the NHS ends their legally binding waiting times guarantee as is reported in the media? How will the loss of between 200 and 400 beds across Lothian help delay discharge? What will we say to people in Lovingston and other areas of the Lothians who cannot get a GP appointment because of the crisis in our surgeries? What will we do about the social care system, a social care system that fails our older people and those who care for them? How do we stop people dying young in our poorest communities? If we as a Parliament and we as a society know what is killing those people early and we do little or nothing about it, then this Parliament is complicit in those early deaths and we must face up to that. The public services are the services that civilise our society. The people who work in them, who educate our children, who clean our streaks, who look after the vulnerable, are the essential glue that holds our society together. At my election count, I heard and saw on TV politician after politician praising the hard work of the council staff who helped administer the election. Most of the people here would have done that, but many of those same politicians will have went in to this chamber year after year and voted for budget cut after budget cut and will probably do so again, putting some of those very same workers out to work, cutting their hours or continuing with below inflation pay deals. That is the hypocrisy that people are watching. In this Parliament, I will argue for public services. I will oppose cuts and privatisation. I will argue for fair funding for local government. Let's not hear claims that a 1 per cent increase in the NHS budget is anywhere near enough when health inflation runs at 7 per cent. Let's not hear claims that we are overfunding local government when we have lost 70,000 jobs. I will argue for progressive taxation. I will argue that we use the powers of this Parliament to challenge current economic orthodoxy. I will argue that we protect our environment. I will argue for an end to the cuts that damage the life chances of young people. I will reject the politics that refuses to address these key issues and instead waves a flag and pretends that it will all be okay.  People need answers, not symbols and empty rhetoric. I thank you very much. I now call Derek Mackay. Cabinet Secretary, you have till 459 or thereabouts. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Let me try and find the consensus of the day, which I think has largely featured in much of the debate that we have had following on from Neil Findlay, that champion of parliamentary consensus. First of all, I congratulate all those members who have given their first speeches. I will make some reflections there. I also welcome all the Opposition spokespeople to their post and particularly to Kezia Dugdale on her self-appointed promotion to Opposition finance spokesperson for the Labour Party. I look forward to representing the Labour Party in that role. In terms of the first speeches of the members, I will do them in order in which they have spoken. Maurice Golden gave a very impressive CV on environmental matters. I saw Murdo Fraser looking with great interest to those environmental concerns on that very impressive CV that was outlined to Richard Leonard, asking about the Government's economic strategy. I am very familiar with that strategy and I am happy to share it with the member. The member fairly asked about Government interventions when they are required. I would simply ask the steel workers or the workers at Ferguson's what this Government does when they are outside the public sector and require our support not to mention the preferred bidder status for CalMac itself, my last act as transport minister. I touch very importantly on housing to which this Government had an excellent record in house building and supporting that sector in very difficult times. We have set out aspirations in housing as well, but those are the right kind of issues, of course, for this Government to reflect upon. Gordon Lindhurst spoke about the importance of broadband, as did many other members, and that is fair and absolutely correct. That is the infrastructure of the future that will unlock different kinds of economic development. I want to say at that point that Rhoda Grant asked how it was possible that we would meet our manifesto commitment for 100 per cent roll-out of broadband. I do not think that that was a commitment that was matched, incidentally, by the Labour Party or any other party, but we did meet our targets. We actually met our targets ahead of schedule, so I am confident that they will continue to deliver on our commitments around broadband. Jenny Gilruth gave a very powerful speech on gender, on education and the connectedness of the right interventions in terms of the life chances of our children. I thought that that was an incredibly powerful speech that was given for us all to reflect upon this afternoon. Dean Lockhart spoke about the sense of change in the chamber with many new members, but some things have not changed. Tory members will now have to reflect on how to play Parliament bingo in terms of George Adam and how many times he can mention Paisley, but it sounds as if Annie Wells might be competing in terms of how many times Annie Wells can mention Glasgow and her Glasgow roots. Just a word of caution—I know that you are happy with the results in Glasgow, but the SNP did win every constituency in the city of Glasgow. Rona Mackay gave a very impressive speech on education, childcare and, of course, child protection and the connections there. Many other members have focused on the priorities for government that have been outlined by the First Minister of the Opposition leaders' important points around the consensus that we can build on a progressive alliance and the policies that are right for Scotland. Patrick Harvie said that he will not simply make demands, because simply making demands will not work. I have to tell you that, as the cabinet secretary, with responsibility for the budget, that is music to my ears, that there will not be simply a set of demands. However, I am afraid that I do not have time on this occasion, Mr Harvie, on many other occasions. I appreciate the pledge around a positive constructive approach. That was also the theme very much of, if not all, the content from Willie Rennie, Kezia Dugdale and Ruth Davidson. However, there are many things on which we can agree and find that common ground and that consensus in many of the subject areas that we have described. Willie Rennie repeated the plea of producing too many plans, but where are your plans? He then asked, what are we doing about certain issues? It cannot be just about appointing a minister. You have to put your money where your mouth is, and that is why, following on from the priorities of Government, there will be spending commitments, some of which have been outlined in the speech, including new resources for the NHS in real terms, in terms of mental health, in terms of education and the attainment fund, and in many other areas where there is not just a political focus, but there are new resources to match the reality of the political commitment that has been attached by our First Minister. Setting out from a manifesto in which the SNP won the Scottish Parliament elections, we will have to reach out to all parties in the chamber to deliver our joint aspirations in the many areas that we agree, not least on addressing inequality. The First Minister has made it perfectly clear in all the themes that run through our priorities of Government that equality of opportunity is the key driver and is the key principle that we will deliver upon to build a fairer and a welfare country that we all want to see. That is the beginning of the blueprint for delivery in transforming Scotland in public service reform and delivering the economic growth that will fund the interventions that can support our public services to allow us to deliver the kind of Scotland that we all want to create. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr Mackay. I remind all members who have spoken to be present in the chamber for concluding remarks in the debate tomorrow afternoon when this debate continues. The next item of business is consideration of business motion 183 in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick on behalf of the Parliamentary Bureau, setting out a business programme. I would ask any member who wishes to speak against the motion to press the request-to-speak button now, and I call on Joe Fitzpatrick to move motion 183, formally moved. No member has asked to speak against the motion, therefore I will now put the question to the chamber. The question is that motion number 183 in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick be agreed to. Are we all agreed? Thank you. That motion is agreed to. The next item of business is consideration of four parliamentary bureau motions. I would ask Joe Fitzpatrick to move motion 184 on First Minister's questions, portfolio and general questions, motion 185 on the variation of standing orders, motion 186 on the office of the clerk and motion 187 on parliamentary recess dates. Can I ask Mr Fitzpatrick to move those motions? Moved on block. The question on those motions will be put at decision time to which we now come. I propose to ask a single question on motion numbers 184 to 187 on various procedural issues relating to question time, the office of the clerk and parliamentary recess dates. If any member objects to a single question being put, please say so now. No member has objected, therefore I put the question that motions 184 to 187 in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick be agreed to. Are we all agreed? We are all agreed. That concludes decision time. Thank you.