Some homeless need housing first

The mentally ill and substance abusers make up more than a third of Honolulu’s unsheltered homeless and account for an inflated drain on public resources in their cycle through hospital emergency rooms and jail. Mayor Kirk Caldwell is logical in following other cities that have found success in providing housing where these "chronically homeless" can be helped. The goal is commendable, but should not be at the expense of homeless children and their families also in drastic need of assistance.

Caldwell’s project is patterned after Housing First programs that have been successful in New York City, Los Angeles and numerous other cities, and been endorsed by the Obama administration and the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, which has a budget of $5.3 billion to assist cities. Honolulu’s goal is to provide rooms comparable to dormitory housing for as many as 100 of the more than 500 chronically homeless by the end of 2015, of the 1,465 unsheltered homeless residents. The mayor said he wants to expand the project, if successful, in future years.

Under the old system, government social workers tried to treat a chronically homeless person and offered free housing as an incentive. Under Housing First, housing is provided for stability while alcoholism, drug and mental issues can be treated. That makes sense.

The chronically homeless "need to be housed in places where they reside right now, on our sidewalks, in our parks and on our beaches," the mayor said. "And that’s the big difference: where they’re located." The "demonstration project," submitted to the City Council on Thursday, is to target homeless in Waikiki, Chinatown and the Waianae Coast.

At a typical setting in Los Angeles, men in their 40s, 50s and 60s can be seen gulping cheap vodka or — this is progress — beer in a designated back patio of a four-story building housing 60 residents, hopefully with growing periods of sobriety. Whereas there previously was no help and no hope, as many as 5 percent stop drinking every year. A study found that a Housing First facility in Seattle cost taxpayers significantly less than leaving alcoholic homeless on the street by having less to pay at emergency rooms and social and legal services.

The Honolulu project is expected to cost from $3 million to $4.9 million over two years to provide shelter and treatment for the chronically homeless, averaging $30,000 to $48,000 per person helped. A report accompanying the plan found 215 potential housing units, of which 23 are now available with monthly rents of $400 to $600.

Nationally, the number of chronically ill single adults has declined since 2007 by 19 percent, due largely to Housing First programs. So that’s encouraging, if Honolulu is to get serious about the homeless problem.

Unfortunately, the number of homeless families has increased by more than 13 percent over the same period, points out the Institute for Children, Poverty and Homelessness. Less than one-fourth of homeless children graduate from high school. More help obviously is needed for homeless families, reflecting the Obama administration’s goal of ending family homelessness by 2020.

Caldwell has taken an important step in initiating a plan for housing of chronic homeless, a particularly tough core of the homelessness at parks and streets that have turned into tent camps. This pilot project needs the support of all neighborhoods to gain traction and prove its worth, both in cost-effectiveness and in humane help for people who cannot do it alone.