There’s more than 1 way to help homeless

Honolulu continues to make incremental advances in its efforts to grapple with its homelessness problem. That’s a hopeful sign after years of stagnation and bureaucratic indecision.

There were the sweeps last week on streets in Kakaako, where a homeless encampment has been allowed to expand and harden.

Despite the courtroom challenges of the city stored-property and sidewalk-clearing ordinances enabling these actions, the results have included finding safer shelter for a few dozen of the homeless.

The tourism industry seems to be stepping up its efforts, too. Last week, the Hawaii Lodging and Tourism Association put $100,000 toward expanding outreach to Waikiki homeless. Over the past year, the program has helped 355 people, including 115 who got help buying airline tickets to head back to their own support systems on the mainland.

Every bit of progress deserves to be celebrated — but this state has only begun its work.

The homelessness initiatives tried in other states can prove to be instructive and, where successes have been registered, inspirational. Although on-the-ground realities call for different responses in each community, Honolulu officials can learn from the collective experience of other cities.

Chronicling projects in Seattle, San Francisco and Salt Lake City, a series by Star-Advertiser writer Dan Nakaso concludes today. One key to the successes logged in these cities is sheer, relentless determination. Cities find solutions that work because they are willing to try a number of ideas, adapt the ones they can, reject those that truly fail and move on.

Hawaii’s response to the challenge too often has been halting and tenuous, showing a preference for protracted study over trying out solutions at a fairly rapid pace.

There are, for example, transitional housing projects being developed at Sand Island and in Waianae. But there should be no reason to wait until they emerge in full flower before getting other pilot programs moving, too.

Why not try what San Francisco has done?

For example, the Bay City converted abandoned municipal buses into mobile hygiene stations for the homeless.

Helping to fill various needs of those without shelter — cleanliness, secure storage of valuables — should be a goal.

Given that putting a roof over the heads of the houseless can take time, it’s wise to approach the outreach mission more expansively, and with creativity.

In today’s installment, Nakaso met with Lloyd Pendleton, the retired Salt Lake City homeless coordinator. He’s a believer in Housing First, a federally subsidized program that advocates rapid rehousing of the homeless in advance of providing the medical and social services they need.

The goal in Salt Lake City was to convince landlords to rent apartments to the homeless, in return guaranteeing their rent, money for damages, social service workers at the ready and a hotline to call in the event of problems.

Certainly the island rental market is hotter by far than that of Utah, which means Honolulu and neighbor island homelessness programs would need to redouble the support effort.

Honolulu landlords in particular need to be shown, persuasively, that accepting a homeless tenant is a risk they can accept — and should accept for the good of the community.

In Seattle, which mirrors Honolulu’s high-cost housing market, officials actively wooed prospective landlords, staging a rally to explain how Housing First works and what protections the city offers. That kind of aggressive marketing worked in Seattle, and it can succeed here.

In addition, Seattle has homeless campsites that enlist the residents themselves to cover tasks such as working security shifts.

While such "safe zones" aren’t exactly a Garden of Eden, they do provide the homeless with a safer alternative than the sidewalks and hideaways on the street.

Honolulu ought to contemplate such alternatives, and try small-scale projects that emerge without insisting on crossing every T and dotting all the I’s.

Officials should show the willingness to experiment with the less-than-ideal solutions such as a safe zone for the help they could bring to larger numbers.

The most pointed lesson learned was the one Pendleton imparted to Star-Advertiser readers today.

"Start doing it now," he said. "You can analyze yourself to death. Just start doing and learning as you go."

The slogan was claimed years ago by a well-known commercial entity, but it also works well as a directive to city and state government: Just do it.