City housing department revisited

Honolulu City Council members are lukewarm to the idea of re-establishing a city housing department.

The idea came up last week during a discussion on Resolution 15-43 before the Council Executive Matters and Legal Affairs Committee meeting.

The resolution, introduced by Councilman Ron Menor, urges the Hono­lulu Charter Commission to put before voters a proposal to change the City Charter to allow for a housing department to be established again. The resolution says the same Charter amendment proposal would abolish an existing housing office.

Menor said the city’s housing functions have been scattered among different city agencies since the housing department was abolished in 1998 as part of a sweeping reorganization of city operations under Mayor Jeremy Harris.

Now an office of housing develops and carries out policies, while a division of the Department of Community Services administers the city’s Section 8 rental assistance program. A new Office of Strategic Development was created last year to help with various housing and homelessness issues.

"The administration of the city’s housing programs appears to be somewhat fragmented and the lines of accountability blurred, and sometimes it’s tough for us to figure out who’s in charge of what on affordable-housing policies," Menor said. Consolidating all those functions back under one roof now makes sense "given the fact that our city is faced with a housing and homelessness crisis," he said.

Such an agency "would administer housing programs, secure state and federal funding, work with the private sector and nonprofit organizations, and ensure that projects related to affordable housing and homelessness are well maintained and financially sustainable."

The department would be headed by a director with Cabinet-level status, "which would help to ensure that affordable housing and related issues would be given a high priority over the long term," he said, and allow for "a more coordinated and focused approach to addressing affordable housing and homeless issues on the city level."

City Managing Director Roy Ame­miya, a department director during the Harris administration, said Mayor Kirk Caldwell supports merging all housing programs and services with the existing Department of Community Services. Caldwell administration officials are looking into whether such a merger would require a Charter amendment, he said.

Without a housing office, there are no city employees with the expertise to map out how existing vacant city land can be used to develop housing, including properties that have been vacant when Ame­miya first left city government in 2004, he said.

Another possible function of a new housing department would be to deal with the aftermath of the failed effort to sell 12 city rental housing properties last year.

Council Chairman Ernie Martin said he’s concerned that "responsibilities can get lost in the shuffle" under a consolidated housing department. Martin also reiterated his opposition to the administration’s creation of the seven-person Office of Strategic Development, which is designed to help land developers build affordable housing throughout the island. The most recent draft of the Council budget calls for funding of the position to be deleted.

Councilman Joey Mana­han said he’s wondering whether all the functions can be pooled together without the need to establish a new department.

Executive Matters Chairman Trevor Ozawa said we wants to know whether a consolidated housing department would focus more on providing housing not just for the homeless, but also for Oahu residents from across the income spectrum who need homes.