Progress slow for affordable housing

The U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness is lauding state and city officials for pushing a new best practices system that stresses moving homeless people through shelters and into permanent housing at a brisk pace.

So-called “performance-based contracts,” which have had some success in mainland communities, start with making shelter stays more appealing to would-be homeless clients by remaining open around the clock, staffing social service workers who can help clients with problems, and often allowing pets. Then, upon entering a shelter, clients are assigned a target date for moving on to permanent housing.

Last fall, state officials contemplated whether 50 percent of each shelter’s clients could leave within 30 days, with half of them moving into permanent housing. Aspirational goal? Yes. Realistic? No.

Our shortage of affordable rental spaces makes it extremely difficult to place clients in permanent housing at a speedy pace. That’s why, after a few years of concerted effort to put a sizable dent in homelessness in the islands, Hawaii still has the highest per capita homeless population in the country.

This week, during a visit here, the federal Council’s Seattle-based regional coordinator, Katy Miller, acknowledged that shelter providers in Hawaii and elsewhere initially balked at the new focus. “It was very scary to people. … But the reality is that it absolutely had to happen.” She praised the state’s homeless coordinator for helping to lead the way in the ongoing effort to make shelters “a place where someone wants to go into and lead to something better.” That sounds heartening, but naive.

No one wants to see homeless people stuck in shelter limbo, of course. But moving on to anything at all in the way of affordable housing in Hawaii is a daunting task.

The pent-up demand for affordable housing on Oahu (estimated at a whopping 24,000 units) is being addressed by a marketplace that’s adding only 2,000 to 3,000 housing units to the supply annually, with most priced in the luxury bracket. Most of the demand — 75 percent — is for households earning less than 80 percent of area median income (AMI). That translates to $80,450 for a family of four, according to data calculated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

Clearly, there are no easy fixes in the islands for this end of the HUD-endorsed new best practices system aimed at ending homelessness.

Last year, the Legislature passed Act 127, which set a goal of developing at least 22,500 affordable rental units by 2026. The legislation notes ominously: “Without sufficient affordable rental housing, the future social, community and economic consequences for Hawaii may be dire.”

Right now, it’s unclear how the state can adequately ramp up affordable housing inventory, but the agency that manages public housing for low-income residents, the Hawaii Public Housing Authority, is eyeing possibilities. Among them is a 10-project idea that could add as many as 10,600 units along the planned Honolulu rail route. The biggest in that bunch could open up 2,140 rentals through the redevelopment of Mayor Wright Housing in Palama. That offers a glimmer of hope, but only if the city’s cash-strapped rail project is able to proceed with plans for transit-oriented development.

Some things have improved since Miller first visited Oahu two years ago. At that time, scores of tents were popping up every few weeks at an encampment near the Children’s Discovery Center in Kakaako, underscoring an undeniable homelessness crisis. There seems to be a better coordinated statewide effort to address the ongoing problem.

In an encouraging outlook, Miller said if our momentum holds, Hawaii is poised to see “great progress.” Here’s hoping she’s right. But since homelessness is fundamentally an affordable housing issue, unless we quickly build upon the aspirational with construction of tangible units, the problem will only get worse.