On state homeless crisis, governor is late to the table

Gov. David Ige’s show of leadership in Hawaii’s homelessness crisis offers hope we can finally make headway, but only if he brings some urgency that he’s failed to muster so far.

The homelessness committee Ige formed — headed by himself and including Mayor Kirk Caldwell, City Council Chairman Ernie Martin, House and Senate money committee leaders, the state human services director and representatives of Hawaii’s two U.S. senators — certainly has the muscle to get the job done.

The question is whether the group will dig deep into the roots of homelessness and find lasting solutions or just make another doomed attempt to push the homeless out of sight.

It’s astonishing that it’s taken nearly eight months into his term for the governor to step forward on this humanitarian tragedy and potential economic disaster.

He kept holdover state homelessness coordinator Colin Kippen in interim limbo since December, then dismissed Kippen last week before starting a search for a permanent director.

Little was accomplished during that time and the lost opportunity was costly.

For instance, Ige said a goal of his committee is to identify unmet needs and propose remedies to the 2016 Legislature.

If he had appointed a homelessness coordinator from the start and gotten his administration working on the problem quickly, he very well could have had remedies to present to the 2015 Legislature.

Ige prides himself on a deliberative approach to governing and said he wants his committee to be "thoughtful" in moving forward.

That’s fine, as long as he recognizes the fine line between deliberating and dithering.

Homelessness was described at Ige’s news conference as a "full-blown crisis" — in other words, an emergency.

The governor has considerable power to direct resources and cut through red tape in an emergency, and he shouldn’t be shy about using it to find suitable space for homeless campers overwhelming Kakaako, Kapahulu and the Kapalama Canal.

And it’s outrageous that in the face of our housing and homelessness nightmare, more than 400 state public housing units are in disrepair and vacant — a number expected to rise because of unwise budget cuts.

Surely it would be a reasonable use of Ige’s emergency powers to cut through the plodding bureaucratic process and get these units fixed and occupied.

Ige is the fourth governor to have a swing at homelessness.

Ben Cayetano did little more than roust homeless squatters from Makua Beach.

Linda Lingle opened shelters in Kakaako and West Oahu, but her good intentions ran out of steam in the Great Recession.

Neil Abercrombie created a homelessness czar and promised solutions, only to lose momentum when his appointee had to resign because of a personal issue.

If Ige is to succeed where the others fell short, it’ll take front-burner urgency for the rest of his term.

Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com.