Permanent solution remains elusive for isle homeless

Honolulu will know it has turned the corner in its campaign to end homelessness when progress is measured by the number of low-income families finding permanent homes rather than the tally of people who have been directed from the street into institutional shelters. It’s a long way from that point.

The Homeless Point-in-Time Count 2012, conducted Jan. 23, tallied 4,353 homeless people on Oahu, a rise of under 3 percent from the previous year. The silver lining in this particular dark cloud — any increase in the homeless population can’t be good news — is that another important metric is also up slightly: the percentage of the homeless who are in shelters as opposed to living on the streets.

This is one of many communities that conduct these January counts at least every other year, a requirement for receiving federal funds from the Department of Housing and Urban Development under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Grants program. They help policymakers track progress toward the goal of ending homelessness and inform public and private efforts to bridge gaps that families face.

This year, 70 percent of the homeless people were in shelters, up 1.3 percent. Most of those without a roof over their heads were individuals, according to the report: 93 percent of the homeless who were part of families had found cover in shelters.

The growth in overall homeless numbers has abated considerably after the 15 percent increase between 2009 and 2010, attributable to the recession. Outreach may have helped slow the climb, with work by the state’s Housing and Homeless Task Force, improved coordination of social service referrals. But there is still work to do to bring more people into emergency shelters and to provide more transitional housing solutions, issues that deserve the attention of the Colin Kippen, the state’s new homeless coordinator.

Some of the chronically homeless have mental-health and substance-abuse problems requiring the more focused attention that a specialized shelter — the most recent version is Mayor Peter Carlisle’s Pathways proposal — can provide. It’s good that the idea remains current for planners, but it hasn’t happened yet.

The heaviest lift is bringing more affordable rental units into the marketplace, giving families stable living quarters and freeing up transitional space for others trying to get on their feet. The market-priced rentals are beyond the reach of many of the working poor, who often lack the savings to put down the required deposit, if they even can manage the rent on a monthly basis.

Adding to the stock of affordable units is happening more slowly than policymakers have hoped. For example, a plan to produce 751 homes on 40 acres of state land in Kapolei was meant to fill a need for occupants who met low-income standards. The economic downturn made this plan tough to pencil out with the state’s partner, Castle & Cooke Homes, which recently cut the number of homes by about 100 and converted many of the planned rentals to for-sale housing.

Such difficult market conditions underscore the importance of the city’s efforts to keep rents low in the negotiations to privatize its stock of low-income and senior-citizen rentals. The final agreement is due by the end of August.

And government must find better ways to incentivize the private development of affordable rentals. That’s the only reliable course for building a broadly priced housing inventory that will enable deeper reductions in homelessness — yielding a future Point-in-Time Count that can truly be considered the mark of success.