About Sidewalk Ledger

Sidewalk Ledger is an independent English-language publication about housing, homelessness and civic action in Honolulu and across Oʻahu. It explains the numbers, laws and programs that shape who has a home on the island, in plain language and with links to the sources behind every claim.

What we publish

• Counts & data: Point-in-Time counts, Census housing figures and program reports, with their limits spelled out.
• Housing & policy: income limits and "affordable" housing, vouchers, kauhale, Housing First and State and City policy.
• Getting help: how coordinated entry, shelters, outreach and Medicaid housing supports work in practice.
• Rights & public space: sidewalk and park rules, belongings, court rulings, eviction protections and students' rights.
• How to help: practical, respectful ways for residents to give, volunteer and take part in decisions.

How the explainers are researched and checked

• Primary sources first. Figures and rules come from the bodies that produce them: Partners in Care (Oʻahu's Continuum of Care), the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the U.S. Census Bureau, the State of Hawaiʻi and its Legislature and courts, the City and County of Honolulu, and university evaluations. They are linked in the text and listed at the end of each article.
• News reports as a second line. Where a primary report is not public or does not break out a figure, we cite named news coverage and say so.
• Dates and versions. Laws, income limits and program rules change. Each article states the year of the figures it uses, and we update articles when the underlying rules change.
• Uncertainty stated. When sources disagree, or a figure is an estimate, the text says so rather than choosing the most striking number.
• No invented people. Articles are signed by the publication, not by individual bylines. We do not publish invented quotes, composite characters or anonymous testimonies.

What Sidewalk Ledger does not do

• It is not a service provider and cannot place anyone in shelter or housing. The shelter guide and crisis guide point to the organizations that can.
• It does not give legal, medical or financial advice. Articles on law explain how rules generally work; for a specific situation, contact legal aid, a mediation center or the relevant agency.
• It takes no advertising, sponsorship or affiliate income, and is not affiliated with any government agency, political party, campaign or service provider mentioned on the site.
• It does not publish photographs of identifiable people in hardship. Photos show places, buildings and landscapes, and are listed on the photo credits page.

Tone

Homelessness is a subject where people hold strong and opposing views. Sidewalk Ledger aims to be factual and fair: to set out what the rules are, what the evidence shows and where reasonable people disagree, and to treat people experiencing homelessness as neighbors whose dignity matters.

About this domain

Sidewalk Ledger is a new and independent publication. The domain it uses previously belonged to another project: in the early 2010s it hosted a volunteer-run activist blog about homelessness and the occupation of public space in Honolulu, and in later years the address was reused by a third party for automatically generated question-and-answer pages. Sidewalk Ledger has no connection with either: not with the earlier project, its organizers or participants, nor with the later owner. None of their names, logos, texts or images are reused here, and nothing on this site should be read as speaking for them.

The subject is related, because the topic of housing and public space in Honolulu remains important, but the work, the editorial line and the people responsible are different.

Corrections and requests

If you find an error, an outdated rule or a broken link, please let us know; corrections are made in the article and, when significant, noted with an updated date. The legal notice explains how requests reach the editors.