Hundreds of isles’ homeless are new to state

About 6 percent of Hawaii’s homeless population — or about 600 people — arrived in the Aloha State in only the last 12 months, according to a new University of Hawaii report.

In addition, about 16 percent of the homeless population — or about 1,600 people — told Hawaii social service workers they became new residents within the last five years.

Those are among the findings in the latest joint study by UH-Manoa and the state Department of Human Services called the "Homeless Service Utilization Report: Hawaii 2014."

The report is scheduled to be released Friday, but Sarah Yuan, an associate specialist with the UH Center on the Family and the report’s lead author, gave a sneak preview of the study at Wednesday’s meeting of the Hawaii Interagency Council on Homelessness.

The study, conducted every year since 2006, provides insight into Hawaii’s homelessness problem — considered one of the worst in the nation per capita — on top of the annual "point-in-time" counts taken to update the homeless population.

The report, Yuan said, indicates that a growing number of people are experiencing chronic homelessness, meaning they are at least four-time repeat clients in the last three years or they have relied on services for more than a year.

What’s more, 38 percent of the homeless population continued to be served by Hawaii’s social service system from the year before, while 24 percent returned to the system after being served in the past, she said.

About 38 percent are new to the system, including the 6 percent who arrived in Hawaii within the last 12 months.

"It’s not a large number but a sizable amount of people — about 600 or so," she said.

As for the 1,600 who said they were new arrivals within the last five years, Yuan said this population may have come to Hawaii with a job only to lose it.

"For some reason they could not make a living here," she said.

Some homeless advocates contend a growing number of the homeless are recent arrivals from the mainland, lured not only by warm weather and beaches, but by easy access to general assistance and universal health coverage.

The Institute for Human Services has been helping some homeless folks find their way back to the mainland, and the agency recently announced a full-time outreach program in Waikiki, with support from the Hawaii Lodging & Tourism Association, that will serve 300 people in its first year, including 120 who will be offered assistance in returning home outside Hawaii.

The UH report found similar numbers over the last threeyears when it comes to the length of stay for homeless people using emergency and transitional shelters, Yuan said. In the 2013 report, single people who used emergency shelters stayed an average of 124 days, while those accessing transitional shelter services stayed an average of 224 days.

"That means there’s room for improvement, definitely," she said.

During Wednesday’s meeting of the Hawaii Interagency Council on Homelessness, service providers offered the latest updates on the state’s plan to create a coordinated assessment system aimed at identifying the homeless and matching them up with services, with those with the greatest need getting the highest priority.

"Those people who are most in need are going to float to the top here," said Colin Kippen, state homeless coordinator. "Those are the people we are prioritizing, because we know they will die on the streets and they will consume vast amounts of taxpayer dollars with not good outcomes if we don’t change the (current) model."

A total of 1,549 homeless households have been surveyed for the state’s Hale O Malama program since March, according to Scott Morishige, executive director of the nonprofit PHOCUSED (Protecting Hawaii’s Ohana, Children, Under-Served, Elderly & Disabled).

Among those survey findings:

» The top spots for homeless households to sleep are: streets/sidewalk (30 percent), beaches/parks (27 percent) and shelters (22 percent).

» Some 76 percent say they need more housing support than is currently available, while 24 percent say they can be served merely with the availability of affordable housing.

» There is more need for intensive housing support in Waikiki and Chinatown compared to the homeless on Oahu’s Leeward Coast.

» The most vulnerable homeless folks reported being unsheltered for an average of eight years.

Helping Hands Hawaii is working with Catholic Charities Hawaii with the aim of permanently housing 10 homeless individuals and enrolling 50 more in case management services by the end of the year, while the state’s Housing First program contractor, U.S. Vets, reported 29 households having received permanent housing.

Interagency council members heard a Housing First success story involving a 41-year-old mother and 15-year-old daughter who had been without shelter for six years. The woman, with a serious mental illness, was self-medicating with drugs and alcohol, while the daughter was not attending school.

Now, mother and daughter are safely housed. A case manager is working with the woman to take medication more regularly, while the girl is attending school.