City housing officials say they will explain to City Council Budget Committee members Monday that more than $20 million being set aside for their Housing First initiative will help homeless families as well as individuals find permanent shelter.
Council leaders have raised initial questions about the sum earmarked for the initiative, noting that traditionally the Housing First model assists those with chronic issues such as substance abuse or mental illness.
But Mayor Kirk Caldwell and his top housing aides insist that families will be able to benefit both directly and indirectly from Housing First and that previous notions of whom the model helps are outdated.
City Community Services Director Pam Witty-Oakland said families would be eligible for Housing First vouchers as long as at least one member meets the definition of being "chronically homeless." The vouchers could then be used to pay rent at apartment complexes where landlords have agreed to participate.
The first gauge of how Mayor Kirk Caldwell’s ambitious Housing First plan will fare with other Council members will come at 1 p.m. Monday when the Budget Committee gets an overview of Witty-Oakland’s Department of Community Services plans for the coming year.
The key principle behind Housing First is that permanent shelter should be the first priority for people who are chronically homeless without being required to first, or simultaneously, deal with other issues such as substance abuse, mental illness or unemployment. Housing First advocates argue that such preconditions, usually required by traditional assistance programs, often discourage the homeless from seeking help.
Caldwell announced Feb. 26 that his budget for the upcoming 2015 budget year includes $18.9 million in the capital improvements budget that will be used for Housing First "shelter acquisition" and an additional $3 million in the operating budget for other services.
Council Chairman Ernie Martin and Budget Chairwoman Ann Kobayashi immediately raised concerns that too much money was being promised to Housing First, noting that the initiative historically has been used to help individuals with chronic substance abuse, mental illness or related issues.
The state already put in more than $1 million into its own Housing First initiative, Martin said. The city should "let the state take the lead in dealing with that chronically mentally ill population, those single-substance abusers or dual-diagnosed population that’s difficult to serve."
Martin noted that the $18.9 million in capital improvements for Housing First would come from the Affordable Housing Fund, which is under the authority of Council members.
But Witty-Oakland and Housing Coordinator Jun Yang said there are no set criteria mandating who can be helped under Housing First unless federal block grant dollars are used. Even then, they said, changes in definitions would allow for families to be eligible for help.
"Families are eligible for the Housing First program to the extent that the head of household … meets all the other criteria of the definition of what a chronically homeless individual is," Witty-Oakland said.
A chronically homeless person, she emphasized, is not necessarily one with drug problems, mental illness or no job. And under rule changes, federal housing officials define chronically homeless as being without shelter or in a transitional shelter for either one year or four separate occasions in three years, Witty-Oakland said.
About 1 in 4 of Oahu’s homeless population are members of families without homes, and administration officials expect roughly 25 percent of its Housing First program will benefit them.
Witty-Oakland said she will share her plans with the Budget Committee to use the $18 million and "leverage it for additional value."
HUD has been directing municipalities to refocus their homeless programs toward providing permanent housing rather than transitional shelters, Yang said. Statistics show people placed directly into permanent housing are much less likely to fall back into homelessness than those in transitional shelters, he said.
