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tv   Our World  BBC News  June 18, 2017 9:30pm-10:01pm BST

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a forest fire in central portugal has killed the 62 people. hundreds of firefighters have been tackling the blaze will stop pakistan have beaten india in the final of the champions trophy in london. hundreds of millions of people watched the game worldwide on television. at ten o'clock we will have a full run—up of the day's news. now it's time for our world. hawaii's glamorous image is a picture postcard paradise belies a deep social malaise. we have the highest rates of homelessness per capita in the country which is ironic because we have some of the greatest concentrations of wealth as well. i think it could be a tempest building up and that pressure we can't allow to explode.
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a surge in homelessness is pushing the system to breaking point. exposing an ugly social divide in the aloha estate. i think we are one of the stronger communities as far as getting together and saying we don't want the homeless in our neighbourhood and we need to be strong and vocal and try to do whatever we can to keep them out. you can't have a civil society where it's ok for someone to defecate in front of burberries and wipe theirass on the corner of the building. i'm sorry all right, it doesn't work. with authorities cracking down on homeless camps, there's growing disquiet about criminalising the poor and vulnerable. you know we are living in our cultural rights, some tell us different, some tell us that we are living wrong but i don't think so. as the crisis worsens, a remarkable group of women are forging ahead with their own solution. before you leave this place,
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i will make sure that i changed your mind about homeless and houseless people. in just a few years, hawaii has been caught up in a crisis of homelessness. thousands live rough on beaches, in parks and on streets. their lives are mired in poverty and trauma. authorities are struggling to contain the spread. can we cover that for you? go to hell, if you won't give me water get out of my face. to say that we were caught off—guard may be only part of the story. we were to a degree but also we saw an incredible surge in the last few years, it's
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why it's become our biggest issue, it's attracted more attention from my perspective than any other issue in the last 20 years here in hawaii. it's very expensive to live in hawaii. in most cases, people have to work two jobs to pay their rent or buy a house so it's always been expensive but when there was a surge in cost because there has been an inventory shorage, we saw it impossible for some middle class people to afford housing and they became homeless so that was another big problem. now, you have poverty, increased cost of living, methamphetamine addiction,
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there was a wave of drug addiction which fries people's brains and that makes it impossible to function normal society and a lot of those people end up on the street. about a fifth of hawaii's homeless population have recently moved here from the mainland. attracted by the idea that life is easier in the island states, they often discover a different reality. in honolulu, filthy hovels inside storm water drains and motorways have sparked panic alarms over public health and safety. as elsewhere in the united states, here the average life expectancy for a homeless individual is just 51 years old. my name is nick groby, i am a reporter with honolulu simple beats, we are an investigative news outlet based in honolulu, hawaii.
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i have walked the streets several times before. it has just continued to grow to where you can see now we are walking through the middle of the street right now because the sidewalks are covered in people's homes. basically the city is looking at including the street in its sit—lie ban which would mean that all of this will have to go but the question is, where will the people go and that is what the city has been struggling with for years. now they are going to have to pack up and move on or have their belongings taken. the idea is that if you have been disrupted it'll
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make you uncomfortable enough to maybe make you make better decisions about your life and accept the help that is being offered because there is a great deal of help being offered. the sit—lie laws are controversial with critics claiming that they criminalise the homeless. it was along this beach where the city first introduced its sit—lie crackdown after hotels and other businesses loudly complained that the homeless camps were speaking tourists. —— that the homeless camps were spooking tourists. a lot of people have ideological and emotional blinders on that really distorts their common sense. and if you piss on the tourist industry,
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there is a huge economic cost that will create more poverty and will reduce the tax base, which by the way, homeless services are dependent upon. we might even find some here today. even though they are cleared out, they come back. we have a chair left over. lane goodall said she's on a mission to keep her community clean and safe. we have laws in hawaii that state it is illegal to live on the streets and we have a state of lawlessness right now. we have some graffiti here now. with the help of other local residents, she patrols the streets of hawaii kai looking for any signs of the homeless. again you see the posters now for private property. as soon as he see one tent go up, the community
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needs to call the police, call the city or the state and then get them taken away. once you have one tent then two tents then you are outnumbered. when homeless camps began springing up in local parks and bushland, residents began worrying about property values and the risk of fires engulfing their million—dollar homes. the knife... like many locals in hawaii kai, lane views the island's homelessness as a lifestyle choice. a lot of the people here are one—way tickets from the mainland, word—of—mouth is kind of spreading and people on social media now, a lot of the homeless people have facebook pages so you have this underground movement of the homeless and squatters and freeloaders but everybody needs to contribute, you can't have a society where one factor just takes and takes and takes.
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hawaii's homeless explosion isn't confined to its urban centre. one of the biggest reasons we did this today was because this bridge is actually a flood zone and it rains a lot in hawaii, so when the water comes down we don't want people to get hurt. there was a house here. most of the people here have already left, and the rest scramble together their belongings and leave to avoid trouble with the police. you can see it going all the well to the water and the trails over here as well. five or six camps. spreading out into the the nearby mangroves, this camp was extensive and several young families were living here. for young homeless outreach workers like casey who try to get families shelter, it's a difficult challenge. it's really hard, especially
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because these kids go to school and their classmates know that they are going home to no homes. none of those caught up in today's sweep seemed interested in outside help. do you want to stay with these friendly folks? no, i'm fine thanks. see you later then. minus the bike because that's not yours. minus the bike? yes. homelessness is not illegal, it's not against the law to be homeless. we can't arrest people for no apparent reason. hi, i'm heather, what's your name? bobby. nice to meet you. it's got infected and i went to the doctor and the doctor put me in the hospital for one week. my name is heather, i am a community outreach at ihs. i could not believe that these people were walking, talking and functioning and eating and able to walk about with these
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horrendous wounds. wounds that we never really saw in school or the hospital because they're really big and infected and abscesses and all kinds of crazy stuff. the homeless are the people that have the least political clout so they get forgotten too often until the system begins to crash. are you having any pain right now? just a headache. 0k. we are going to get you into the room soon for a physical exam. i think the biggest frustration is
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that your physician who really wants to see their patients get better is to see that revolving door. it's like this horrific groundhog day of sorts that occurs every two weeks with these individuals because they just aren't able to access or have those determinants of health or social care to be squared away once they leave our four walls and they suffer and they fail and they come back beaten and broke them and at death's door and we start over again. queen's medical center is on the front line of hawaii's explosion in homelessness, seeing hundreds of patients every week. some of them costing more than $1 million year each in medical care. what do what do you do when you've got some individuals who are struggling greatly who need our compassion and support but who also are threatening the entire health economy of our state ? in order to get at the head
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of an explosive problem you need a new model. my model is a new model. as a practising emergency room doctor, senatorjosh green understands the grave health risks of homelessness and he is proposing a radical solution. i think this will be the first time we're going to have a hybrid programme that is both seamless and completely integrated. treat homelessness as a medical condition and allow doctors to prescribe housing for the homeless paid for by federal medical funds. the idea is simple, get people in the homes and save billions of dollars. it's resources already in the budget, but it totally flips how we use them so we can avail ourselves of a lot of housing quickly. if we don't then we will see the problem grow. it could get much worse if we don't have a game changer. while prescribing housing could be a game changer, the average price of a home in hawaii
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is around $700,000 us dollars. making affordability and major hurdle. amidst hawaii's housing crunch, there is a growing push to recognise alternative communities. hello, my name is twinkle borge. i am the leader here in pu'uhonua 0'wai'anae. pu'uhonua 0'wai'anae means refugee people of the land who are the caretakers. how you live is who you are, that's how i feel. pick up the recyclables and put them where they belong.
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this is no ordinary homeless encampment, anyone who comes to live here must sign a contract agreeing to the rules. amongst them, every resident must contribute eight hours a week to community service. this is our community service so each section will have their areas to concentrate on to rebuild, fixup, so this side of the fence, if it's down we will come in as a community and go help and strengthen the walls and whatnot. if rubbish needs to be put out then you will see our vehicles come in and start picking up the rubbish. the encampment is built from tarpaulins, tent poles and recycled goods, but there is little protection from the elements. so we usually use these pallets for rebuilding your floors, raising your tents off the ground so when it's
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raining you are not in the water. when it does get a high tide here, as you know the ocean, this water can come as far as the tree. so these pallets play a big role here. what have you got? a baby chicken. this cohesive community is remarkably organised. divided into different sections, each led by captain. most of them are women. everybody calls auntie loke, but my name is rose. i'm one of the leaders out there. we use maternal instinct out here, all of the women have that. when it comes to the little ones it's automatic, they automatically protect the little ones. 0urchildren, our safety, our rules, is all based upon the safety of our children.
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with the safety of the children paramount, there are stringent rules and a three strikes you're out system. this is our donation tent, we have a donation part... twinkle‘s adopted son, adam, helps to enforce them. if you steal it is an automatic out, especially if it is around here. if it is out there or comes in here then you automatically out, completely. i will come by, twinkle will let me know, she will give me the papers of the violation, i will go, read it to them and they will sign it and if it happens two more times, because we get three chances, on the third chance i come in and they kick you right out. my name is adam, i am twinkle's son. she has been my inspiration for a long time. i don't even need to be living like this in an encampment, i
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can go straight into a home but i choose not to, i choose to stay here because i love the people and i love how things work here. it's inspiring. the resilience of this remarkable community is admirable. the only electricity is from those lucky enough to own a generator and the nearest toilets are hundreds of metres away in a local park. their biggest concern is water. with water pipes cut off to the camp, residents need to fill bottles and cart it from a tap at the nearby marina. it's one of the many daily chores that keeps this place going. how come the hawaiians
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are struggling here, when this is our land, you came here, you took our land from us and left us. just an hour's drive from honolulu, the reality of life for these hawaiians is vastly different to the one that mainland tourists enjoy. twinkle became homeless 14 years ago and creating this community has been a long struggle. i came out here in october of 2003, i was working two full—time jobs, but i fell in love with someone who i thought would never fool around on me and i became so depressed. i had all his money that was saved and everything to find out that this person want wiped me out of my money and everything. teamwork. twinkle firmly believes that home
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is where the heart is. for me homeless is someone who lives in a van that has no home, but i live in a tent, that is my home. i have had tour groups that come in and many times i straight up tell them, before you leave this place, i will make sure that i've changed your mind about homeless and houseless people that live out in the elements as we do and many times i have. they are amazed at what the people do here, they are amazed because once they pass these double doors they feel the rush of aloha. that certain angle so if it comes like this... buoyed by the success of their community, twinkle and her team captains have big plans for their future. the community wants the right to lease the land where they live and to build more durable homes with solar power and proper sanitation.
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they also want fences and security cameras to keep them safe. but the camp's future is far from guaranteed. behind closed doors, there is an ongoing discussion between those who want it dismantled and its residents put into shelters and those that want it recognised and preserved. basically we are just homeless in our own homes. that's how i feel. many locals regard this encampment as an eyesore and a perceived magnet for crime, amidst concerns that it is growing too big. so far, despite twinkle's pleas, hawaii's governor has held back from making any commitment to letting them stay. i believe that our community is over 500 and i said we cannot put 500 here. we can maybe fit 300
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comfortably but usually stay under the radar of 300. twinkle says she will do what it takes to save her community but she is confident that she can convince her detractors. there will be a little squabble, i am not looking for a huge fight. i don't know why they are afraid of working with us. as hawaii grapples with its homeless crisis, there is also a sense of hope that enterprising solutions can be found to alleviate the pressure. twinkle believes her camp could serve as a model for other houseless communities across the islands. she says it's not only time for new ideas but a new mindset as well. this is reality. if they want to learn more about the situation and to come up with a solution, then come and sit down with us.
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because the answer lies here, not there, not in their office, not in their books but here. if you like whether or not, they should be some good news for you at some point in the forecast. sunday brought some real heat to parts of the south west. london got above 32 celsius. it was cooler close to the coasts as we develop a sea breeze, and across northern scotland there was more cloud in the sky. still
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some sunshine but for north west scotla nd some sunshine but for north west scotland that was in short supply because of the weather front that was sitting around in the same place all weekend long and will only slowly move southwards during monday. to the north, some fresh air which will move into some parts of the country. across southern areas the country. across southern areas the hot air holds on. plenty of sunshine once again on monday across the bank of england and wales. also sunshine into parts of northern ireland and southern and eastern scotland. that weather front brings cloud and patchy rain to the northern half of scotland. it would be cooler, but further south temperatures could get up to 33. that could be enough to spark an isolated shower or thunderstorm across parts of the midlands and making sure as we had through monday evening. in ditches the morning, the weather front comes southwards, so the cool and fresh air gets into glasgow, belfast, but for cardiff and london the temperatures hold up and london the temperatures hold up and it's another mucky night. on
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tuesday the fresher air will sit across the northern half of the country. the hot air still in place across the south. temperatures once again during tuesday in parts of southern england and wales will get close to 30 degrees. in the north that will be cooler and fresher and along the line of the weather front there is a greater chance of seeing showers or thunderstorms through the afternoon. tuesday into wednesday, the weather front having moved southwards begins to move north eastwards again. it will introduce some showery rain across parts of northern ireland and western scotla nd northern ireland and western scotland and some fringes of england and wales. some of this could be heavy. still some dry weather, cool to the north—east, warm to the south—east, and wednesday into thursday as the warm front continues to move east it could allow some warm air, even hot air to move in again across the south—east of the country. first it could be even hotter across parts of the south—east england. 25—30, maybe
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even higher. but i cooler and fresher feel in scotland. through thursday night into friday, it will be slow but we will see fresher air moving from the west across more parts of the country. that fresher air, from the atlantic but also coming ina air, from the atlantic but also coming in a hard weather systems like this one which could bring rain into the north west on friday. still warm in the south—east by temperatures back into the mid—20s. into next weekend we will see more of that cool and fresh air coming in from the atlantic because an area of low pressure is likely to move its way in and park itself across the north of the british isles. this low is likely to become slow—moving, bringing this westerly wind. bringing fresh airfrom bringing this westerly wind. bringing fresh air from the atlantic. next weekend should be cooler and fresher, and that's what we ta ke cooler and fresher, and that's what we take forward into the following week. cooler days and fresher night, a mixture of sunshine and showers,
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but some showers could be heavy. the heat will eventually ease. tonight at 10: police release the first pictures from inside grenfell tower, after the devastating fire, that's feared to have killed more than 58 people. the charred remains of one flat where everyone escaped, is testament to the ferocity of the blaze. today the mayor of london, said it was an avoidable tragedy. remember those who lost their lives in a preventable accident that didn't need to happen, and the tragedy we are seeing is because of the consequence of mistakes and neglect of politicians from the council and from the government. services have been held to remember the victims, as the local council leader defends his handling of the crisis. the council has been incredibly active since the early hours of wednesday morning. i was here at 330 on wednesday morning, i have
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been here on and off ever since.
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