Ige issues emergency proclamation on social services for homeless
This is Tee Tulani salvaging what she can from her make shift shelter before Ohe Street is shut down to be cleared of the structures and left over debris and garbage.
Gov. David Ige has issued an emergency proclamation to extend and expand the efforts of Hawaii social service agencies to reduce homelessness, which Ige said continues to represent a “crisis” across the islands.
Following the clean-up of the Kakaako homeless encampment this week, Ige said at a press conference today, “We have come to the end of what we can do with our existing contracts” with social service agencies.
Scott Morishige, Hawaii’s homeless coordinator, said $1.3 million has been identified to help expand social service outreach for another year while the state begins reviewing its existing contracts and the performance of social service agencies.
Ige also announced a new partnership with the Hawaii Association of Realtors that he hopes will encourage more private landlords to rent apartments and homes to homeless tenants in a program known as “Housing First.”
A summit will be held with Hawaii landlords sometime before the end of the year to encourage them to accept homeless people with housing vouchers.
The summit will include information about the protections landlords will be given, along with incentives to renting to people who may have drug or alcohol addictions and even mental health issues.
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The outreach to private landlords follows successful efforts in cities such as Seattle and Salt Lake City that have proven it’s cheaper and more effective to put homeless people into homes first, then address their addictions and other issues.
Ige said the clean-up of the Kakaako encampment gave city and state officials ideas of “best practices” as they set their sights on homeless populations in Waianae, Waipahu and Waimanalo.
Over the course of the Kakaako sweep that began Sept. 8, more than half of the 293 people who were counted during an August census — or 158 people including 25 families — ended up in homeless shelters or permanent housing, Ige said.
The clean-up worked because of cooperation between city, state and federal officials, social service providers and private land owners throughout Kakaako, Ige said.
City managing director Roy Amemiya stood by Ige’s side and called the Kakaako clean-up “just the first step in this statewide crisis.”
