Over spring break, I went to the big island of Hawaii. I spent most of the week in Hilo and Kona and while I was there I observed the homeless population. In Hilo especially, there seems to be a large homeless population (in comparison to what I remember seeing last year when I was there). I looked into when their last point in time count was, and found that it was 2016 when they last did a count for all of the Hawaiian Islands. They did, however, conduct a homeless count in Oahu in 2019. While researching the homeless population in Hawaii, I found that Hawaii has a higher number of homeless people per capita than any other state, apart from New York. The source wrote, “Two-thirds of that population regularly sleep in parks or on the street and the majority are considered chronically homeless” (Loehrer). With an average of 272 rainy days a year, Hilo is the fourth wettest city in the US and among the top wettest cities in the world. So I just wonder how the city cares for these individuals and whether or not they have shelter for everyone. Also, in the last year or so, many individuals have lost their homes due to the lava flow running through the Puna district (about 35 miles from Hilo), so the number of homeless individuals increased because of this. I found several shelters online from a quick google search, but the number of people that are still on the streets and/or are on drugs is very high.