City making progress in push to find housing for homeless

The city’s efforts to ease the country’s highest per capita rate of homelessness resulted in housing for 465 homeless people this year, with more projects and more units slated to come online in 2016, Mayor Kirk Caldwell announced Wednesday.

“It’s been a full year tackling our homeless challenges,” Caldwell told reporters at a Honolulu Hale press conference.

When the year began, Caldwell hoped to house 400 homeless people. “We exceeded that goal,” he said.

Every night, an estimated 2,500 homeless people have some sort of shelter while another 2,500 or so are living on the streets of Honolulu.

The biggest gains on Oahu came through a national initiative pushed by first lady Michelle Obama to end homelessness for military veterans across the country by the end of 2015.

At Obama’s urging, Caldwell joined the national “mayor’s challenge” and so far 275 veterans across Oahu have found housing this year. Another 50 have been identified but cannot be tracked down by social service outreach workers to get them into housing programs, said Jun Yang, executive director of the city’s Office of Housing.

To reach a level of what’s called “functional zero” for ending veteran homelessness, every homeless veteran must be identified, matched with social services, placed within a shelter within 30 days and housed in a permanent home within 90 days.

“We’re close to where we want to be,” Caldwell said.

While time is running out in 2015 for the 50 veterans who have yet to enter the system, Yang said federal housing officials could still determine that Honolulu has reached “functional zero” because the city does meet the criteria of having enough shelter space and housing vouchers for every homeless veteran.

Another 173 homeless people this year were placed in so-called Housing First apartments and homes that allow them to drink and use drugs while getting social service help with their problems, which could include mental health issues.

The city has a two-year contract with the Institute for Human Services to find Housing First homes for formerly homeless tenants around the island and provide them with help. The city will pay IHS $2.2 million in 2016 for the second year of its contract.

IHS also runs the city’s Hale Mauliola on Sand Island, which is expected to house 83 to 85 homeless people and their pets in retrofitted shipping-container dwellings once the housing project is fully up and running in the next few months.

So far, 17 people have moved into Hale Mauliola, which is known as a “navigation center” where on-site social workers help the tenants transition into permanent housing.

In less than a month of operation, two people have moved out of Hale Mauliola and into Housing First units. And on Wednesday a couple moved into permanent housing, said IHS’ executive director Connie Mitchell, who then received an appreciative hug from Caldwell.

Another 70 applications for Hale Mauliola are being processed, Mitchell said.

Despite such strides, it’s hardly been a smooth year for the city’s homeless efforts.

The issue got national exposure in June after state Rep. Tom Brower, (D-Waikiki, Ala Moana, Kakaako) was attacked while photographing the so-called Kakaako makai homeless encampment.

At one point in August, 293 people were counted living in the encampment that was reinforced by plywood and palettes and wound around the University of Hawaii’s medical school and Hawaii Children’s Discovery Center.

As assaults and 911 calls skyrocketed throughout the encampment, city crews spent six weeks methodically tearing it down, only to see dozens of homeless people walk next door onto state land and set up camp at Kewalo Basin Park, Point Panic and Kakaako Waterfront Park.

The state began its own sweep of Kewalo Basin Park around 2 a.m. Tuesday and more sweeps are expected.

The city’s sweep of Kakaako makai — along with its ongoing efforts to clear smaller homeless encampments around the island — were challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii.

U.S. District Judge Helen Gillmor ordered the city to stop the immediate disposal of property seized in homeless sweeps and to video record any items that cleanup crews destroy. A hearing on the ACLU’s request for a preliminary injunction is expected in January.

Citing Gillmor’s ruling, state officials have said they aimed to make sure they avoided their own legal problems before commencing sweeps of Kewalo Basin Park and Kakaako Waterfront Park.

Caldwell on Wednesday also expressed frustration at trying to spend money the City Council appropriated to reduce homelessness, which included $5.5 million to buy two vacant school buildings in Makiki to be used for low-income and Housing First units.

The so-called Hassinger Project — named after one of the nearby streets — represents the first time the city will serve as a Housing First landlord.

Caldwell had asked the Council to fund a housing staff of seven people, but only got enough money for a staff of three, who are struggling to find vacant two- and three-story buildings that can be bought to house more homeless and low-income people.

The city was recently outbid on a former Chaminade dormitory and a four-unit building on Kapahulu Avenue that could have been used to further reduce homelessness on Oahu, Caldwell said.

“We make offers, but we don’t get them,” he said.

Directing his comments to the City Council, Caldwell added: “Please give us the money we need. … We need more staff to succeed.”

Council Chairman Ernie Martin responded with this statement to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser:

“The Council is open to seriously considering the mayor’s request for more staff. We hope it will be part of a consistent effort to work with each of the members on homeless and affordable housing policy and projects in each of their respective districts. We want to augment the good work the mayor and his staff are doing. The members have ideas and projects they would like to get done and we hope the mayor will seriously consider them as part of our collaborative effort to address this crisis.”

Martin added: “We may not always agree on the strategy but we want the same result. Each of the nine Council districts is different and the members must be an integral part of the planning process because nobody knows their constituencies like they do. The Council is committed to helping the homeless while simultaneously pursuing the development of affordable and workforce housing projects.”