Oahu’s homeless population not only grew in 2015, but a higher percentage are living on the streets rather than in shelters, according to a draft of the latest annual “Point-in-Time Count” for Honolulu.
The report — based on a count of sheltered homeless on the night of Jan. 25, followed by a five-day count of Oahu’s unsheltered — showed the highest number of homeless people on the island since 2009.
The overall count was 4,903, up 4 percent from 2014 and 34.7 percent from 2009, according to the draft report, which was obtained Monday by the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.
Furthermore, the 2015 survey showed that 60 percent of those people were sheltered, with the rest
living on the streets, the worst ratio since 2009.
Survey results were collected by the Continuum of Care program and its volunteers in January as part of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s national study.
The unsheltered homeless count was 1,939, up nearly 19 percent from 2014 and nearly 63 percent from 2009.
The sheltered homeless count was 2,964, down nearly 4 percent from 2014 but up about 21 percent from 2009.
Homeless service providers and policymakers cite several reasons for the increase in unsheltered homeless people and the decline in shelter guests.
Due to the transient nature of the population, getting an accurate count is challenging, said Lambert Lum, Waikiki Health’s director of shelter services.
“For example, the couch surfers or relatives staying with family illegally in public-housing units are likely to go uncounted. People in this category may fall in and out of homelessness,” Lum said. “They may not have been counted last year, but may have been counted this year.”
But Jason Espero, director of Waikiki Health’s Care-A-Van, said compared with previous efforts, this year’s counters were better organized, relying on police and elected officials to tell them about the crisis in their communities.
“Through cooperation we think we were able to locate more unsheltered homeless people,” Espero said.
Still, homeless advocates say improved counting is only one of the reasons that counters saw a rise in Oahu’s unsheltered homeless population. Service providers and policymakers also point to Oahu’s severe affordable-housing crisis and cutbacks to beds and services available to those suffering from mental illness.
Some also theorize that lengthy waits for affordable-housing units and programs may have caused some shelter guests to reach the end of shelters’ maximum stay periods. Also, shelter counts may have been reduced by policy changes that better match clients to appropriate service providers and move more from the streets directly into rapid rehousing or permanent supportive housing programs.
“We are doing a much better job of actually putting fewer people into shelters,” Espero said.
As a case in point, Kimo Carvalho, community relations director at the Institute for Human Services, said the nonprofit is working with 44 homeless individuals in Waikiki who have chosen to remain on the streets until permanent housing becomes available.
“We know that there are some people who do not respond well to shelters,” Carvalho said. “We don’t want to bring them into the shelter and have it go badly and break that trust, so we keep in touch and monitor them on the streets.”
State Homeless Coordinator Colin Kippen said it’s clear from the survey that the city and state need to expand permanent supportive housing programs, like Housing First, which serve the chronically homeless, as well as rapid rehousing programs for those who just need a leg up.
Kippen said the survey pinpointed the number of chronically homeless individuals on Oahu at 779 individuals, a 19 percent increase over 2014.
“We are moving in the wrong direction, but the numbers say a lot about our task at hand,” he said. “Criminalizing homeless people just moves them through the community. Not everyone will go into a shelter. We need to focus more on permanent housing. We’ve made a good start this year, but we need to ramp up these programs to scale.”
Kathy Xian, founder of the Pacific Alliance to Stop Slavery, agreed with Kippen but said more programs are needed for those who aren’t chronically homeless, especially seniors and youths.
“The bottom line is that what we are doing as a state and city isn’t working fast enough, and people are falling through the cracks,” Xian said.
Marya Grambs, executive director of Mental Health America of Hawaii, said special emphasis also needs to be placed on serving Oahu’s mentally ill homeless population, which has experienced service and housing cutbacks. For instance, Grambs said, the Queen’s Medical Center cut beds in recent years, and the state Adult Mental Health Division has about half the beds that it did in 2009.
“Why so many unsheltered homeless? I think the chickens are coming home to roost. Too few hospital beds, residential programs and substance abuse treatment programs,” Grambs said. “Our community mental health system isn’t serving many who need help.”
Carvalho said this year’s results are discouraging. However, he added that they could make Oahu eligible for more federal funds.
The counts provide the basis for U.S. Housing and Urban Development’s 2015 homeless estimate, which is a large factor in how much money is awarded for homeless programs and services in the isles. Last year’s count partially formed the basis for January’s news that 45 homeless housing and service programs in Hawaii were awarded $11.62 million of the $1.8 billion in nationwide grants distributed by HUD.
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