Keep in mind here, of course, that the Columbia Hotel is a for-profit enterprise. The layers of ownership and management are in the business for the money. And Pramod Patel, who describes himself in conversation as the lessee of the Columbia, says that it is difficult to maintain the building off the meager rent paid for the Columbia's rooms.
"We have to be really careful to get the best best best deal as far as getting our materials and get the best best best labor deal to get these things done," Patel says.
For Kamlesh, however, who has spent a year living in the hotel and running it, there are more immediate concerns.
"Twenty-four hours. We are working 24 hours," Kamlesh says. "I'm managing the hotel. I'm the manager working as the desk clerk sometimes. ... It is working extra; I'm working on my desk, I'm working on the maintenance crew. I never said to any tenants right now that I am off of my duty. I never said that if they come ... I'm helping them 24 hours."
In the year that he's managed the Columbia, Kamlesh says, things have changed for the better. "I clean it out, the whole building. You can ask any tenants." It's a statement Mangold and Lew agree with.
"We don't have the problems we had a year ago," Mangold says.
"That's because you and Kamlesh took care of them," Lew says.
Kamlesh's front office, behind the plastic wall, is tiny. A television and a VCR, turned off, sit on the front counter. A row of old pigeon-hole mailboxes fills one wall, above a couch beaten beyond recognition. As Kamlesh speaks, tenants come to the window to ask for mail. He sees them, shakes his head. He is looking forward to leaving.
"It's hard for my age to handle all the people. All the people are not safe. One guy hit me in my face. If the people want to deal the drugs up there, we have to stop them. That's why I stopped that guy, and he hit me on my face. A lot of times it happened at night -- people trying to get in and I have to stop them."
After he leaves, Kamlesh says, he doesn't know what will happen. "We are not sure yet because it's hard to find the people to run the place. Like, it's very hard. It's tough to run. All these problems -- a lot of damage is day to day. You have to clean out every day. Nobody knows what's going to happen in five minutes."
But what about the fire? I ask him. That hasn't been cleaned out.
Kamlesh is leaning up against the counter, his arms crossed over his chest. The fire, he says, is not his responsibility. He would like to see it fixed because there's been no rent on those rooms for 10 months. But beyond that, it's not something he can do anything about.
"Skyline Realty is the owner of the property," Kamlesh says. "We are pressing them to deal with the fire danger and still they didn't show up."
SKYLINE REALTY
"That's the lessee's problem," a woman at Skyline says, when asked about the hotel. I ask her what her name is. She hangs up the phone.
COLUMBIA HOTEL INC.
There are three Paul Lums in Honolulu. One is out surfing. The second says he doesn't own the Columbia. The third, reached at home, says yes, he owns the Columbia. Asked why he hasn't repaired the fire damage, he says: "What do you want me to do? I'm kind of disabled. I am 86 years old. I cannot do much anyway." Then he says he doesn't own the building after all.
On Jan. 18, at a hearing conducted by the Department of Building Inspection, the city gave the owners of the Columbia Hotel 30 days to apply for the permits to repair the fire damage, and ordered payment of a fine of nine times the cost of the permits, which will be based on the cost of the work that needs to be done, whatever that turns out to be.
To Tom Mangold, the hotel ombudsman who filed the complaint about the fire with the Building Inspection Department that led to the hearing, the ruling was a victory.
"They're making money off people's misery," he says. He estimates that the cost for the permits, plus the fine, will run about $20,000. "Not enough to hurt a whole lot, but still," he says.
Chalk one up for Mangold, the other tenants of the Columbia, and for the city inspectors. But the thornier issue -- the larger issue, the one that goes beyond building conditions into how to help those without homes regain society -- was not addressed or resolved in the building inspection hearing.
Consider, one last time, the Columbia. The hotel is inspected regularly. It has a tenants' association led by a city official who is also the resident ombudsman. For the last year, it has had as manager a man whom many of the tenants like and trust. But despite these considerable assets, the hotel is still a warehouse -- a dirty, cockroach-ridden, unsettling repository for people about whom there are many questions and no easy answers. You can make the argument that at least the people in the Columbia have shelter, and that argument is true. But you can also ask: How much good are four walls and a roof if you're turning the water on inside and soaking them through? If you're going to do that, you might as well be outside standing in the rain.
With the exception of Room 606 and Room 213, all of the room numbers in this story have been changed. Research assistance by Liza Goodwin.
