A Hawaii state representative has been waging a one-man war on homelessness - not with a groundbreaking new policy, but armed with a sledgehammer.
Seeking his own brand of 'justice', five-term House Democrat Tom Brower has been roaming the streets looking for homeless people so he can smash up their possessions.
Dressed in an Armani Exchange baseball cap and gloves, he has destroyed around 30 shopping trolleys over the last two weeks to prevent them from being pushed around by vagrants who use them to store their belongings.
Any carts he can identify, he returns them to the store.
'I got tired of telling people I'm trying to pass laws.
'I want to do something practical that will really clean up the streets,' he told Hawaii News Now.
Brower has also been turfing the homeless out of bus shelters during the day - yelling at them to 'get your ass moving' - but has decided to leave them be at night.
While his actions have attracted some sympathy in a state with the highest rate of homelessness in the United States, others have reacted furiously to his brand of vigilantism.
One angry caller told Hawaii News Now: 'What if I smash his car up with a sledgehammer "cause I don't like what I see?"'
Brower says he has now hung up his sledgehammer, admitting that the tool gave his campaign a 'really loaded image'.
But he wants the problem of shopping trolleys to be tackled and not become the 'staus quo'.
Lawmakers in Hawaii are known for taking a tough approach to homelessness in the state.
Instead of building more shelters or providing extra services, they recently approved a new $100,000 scheme offering the state's 17,000 homeless one-way flights off the islands over the next two years, reports Think Progress.
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Compassionate Democrat
Compassionate Democrat
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
Re: Compassionate Democrat
Well, I have to say...a state with the highest rate of homelessness in the United States,
If some wizard appeared and said "you have to be homeless, but you get to pick which state you get to be homeless in"...
I'd probably go with Hawaii....
Re: Compassionate Democrat
the problem with being homeless in Hawaii is, if it's outlawed or becomes too difficult to cope with the authorities, where do you go and how do you get there. If you can't afford even a cheap flop, I'll bet you can't afford a plane or boat ticket. Now the state government may deport you by giving you a ticket, but what is going to be done once you get to your destination; will you become a vagrant at the airport?