Relocation of a facility geared toward helping homeless adults with mental illnesses to the city’s Pauahi Hale housing complex in Chinatown should be completed by the end of the year, officials with the city and the Safe Haven project say.
The existing Safe Haven facility, operated by Mental Health Kokua on South Beretania Street across from Kukui Plaza, has 25 in-house patients’ beds that will be phased in at Pauahi Hale, a low-income city housing project on North Pauahi Street, officials said. The organization will operate and manage Pauahi Hale.
Safe Haven will also continue to serve about 50 outpatients and, additionally, will offer services for current Pauahi Hale residents as well others with mental illness and/or homeless concerns who frequent the neighborhood, according to officials.
The city, meanwhile, will be putting on the ground floor a hygiene center with public restrooms and showers that will be open at least 12 hours a day primarily for homeless people, project officials said. There will also be a multiservice center that will provide homeless outreach and on-site services that address medical, psychiatric and chemical dependency problems for those frequenting the area.
Pam Witty-Oakland, city community services director, said no existing tenants from the 77-unit Pauahi Hale will be removed from the building as a result of the new arrangement at Pauahi Hale. Eventually, however, individuals who are chronically homeless under the definitions of the city’s Housing First program would be allowed to move in as the current tenants leave voluntarily.
The city owns Pauahi Hale and is leasing it to Mental Health Kokua, the state’s oldest private, nonprofit mental health services organization, at no cost during the two-year pilot program in exchange for having the provider manage the building and a multitude of new services that would be available there as well as renovations to the existing building.
Mental Health Kokua’s Safe Haven has been a fixture at its South Beretania Street location at the Edwin Thomas Building near Fort Street Mall since it opened there in 1995. But Safe Haven is being asked to relocate by building landlord Housing Solutions Inc., which wants the property back to serve seniors who are homeless.
Mental Health Kokua receives federal funding to provide its Safe Haven services to 25 in-house patients who are part of a program that includes 24-hour supervision. Additionally, about 50 others receive services on an outpatient basis.
The nonprofit will receive a percentage of the tenants’ rents for management and supervising the programs and facilities.
Witty-Oakland said the city is hoping to finalize the contract by the end of October.
Greg Payton, chief executive of Mental Health Kokua, said he expects his organization to take over management by the end of the year.
Many of Safe Haven’s clients are considered chronically homeless, Payton said.
The program will likely eventually take up to 30 units: 25 for clients and about five for services and administrative offices.
"Right now that seems to be a critical area in Chinatown that needs a lot of assistance," Payton said about discussions with government leaders and community stakeholders about relocating to a building near the Pauahi-River streets area and Aala Park.
The Safe Haven relocation, which has the support of the Downtown Neighborhood Board and the Chinatown Business and Com- munity Association, was outlined to the Chinatown-Downtown community at a meeting sponsored by area Councilwoman Carol Fukunaga and the area’s state lawmakers Monday night.
Among those attending was Pauahi Hale resident Richard Elstner, who told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that he pays $300 a month for an 8-by-12-foot room. The tenants share toilets and showers, and there are a community kitchen and dining facilities.
Most tenants, including himself, "are one step away from being homeless," he said. "We have drug users, we have probably drug dealers," he said.
Elstner is 62 and retired from construction engineering. He said he augments his Social Security check by tutoring math at a Honolulu parochial school.
He asked at the hearing whether the tenants will have to share the two building’s two washers and dryers with the community. Payton told him that they would not.
Elstner said he found out about the plan only a few days ago. He said he’s neither for nor against the switch at this point but still has some concerns and many questions.
Fukunaga said she agrees that given the demographics of the Downtown-Chinatown homeless population, partnering with Mental Health Kokua is a good idea.
Meanwhile, Fukunaga helped push into the city budget more than $1 million for services to address not just homelessness, but also health and hygiene problems facing the community. That might include stand-alone restrooms or renovating existing toilets in government buildings for public use.
"These are problem areas that people have talked about for a long time," Fukunaga said.
