Kimo Carvalho has been community relations director at the Institute for Human Services since only 2013, but his emotional link to Honolulu’s homelessness crisis spans most of his 31 years of life.
Family trauma, he said, culminated in his own biological mother leaving home to spend much of her own life in homelessness as well. Some of his social-service colleagues know her and have tried outreach repeatedly, to no avail.
Raised by grandparents who provided for his private schooling at Damien High School and then Tulane University, Carvalho is not immune to the painful realization of her life on the streets.
“If we can move thousands of people out of homelessness, why can’t we help someone like her?” he asked.
Carvalho is currently buoyed by the hopeful aspects of his work, however. Most recently he’s been a spokesman for the latest IHS initiative, the “soft opening” of Hale Mauliola, the “housing navigation center” at Sand Island.
By the grand opening planned for January, IHS anticipates the full complement of 26 converted containers, bathrooms, showers and other amenities, including some that are compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
Carvalho gave the Star-Advertiser a look at the Sand Island center, as well as a tour of some improvements to the women’s and children’s shelter at Kaaahi Street. Upgrades there include the employment center, a children’s center and “homework club,” a rooftop hydroponic and aquaculture complex where clients can learn skills, and improved lockers and beds that are more resistant to pest infestations.
The goal is to get the homeless off the streets and prepared to manage permanent housing, he said, because for children as well as adults, being unsheltered leaves them estranged.
“It will build this sense of mistrust, where they will not trust our IHS outreach workers,” Carvalho added. “They will not trust the community that’s trying to help them, because they’re living with trauma in some sense or way.”
QUESTION: What is the capacity at IHS?
ANSWER: (Beginning the tour) So, this is the women’s shelter; we still have the Sumner (Street) shelter. At capacity there we have 250; at capacity here we have 200.
Q: Women and children here?
A: Women and children, and single women — families and single women.
Q: Families being mothers and children only?
A: We can have fathers, too.
Q: Is that new at all?
A: I don’t think so. We do criminal background checks on everybody that comes through. So we, of course, want to make sure everyone’s safe. We explain to the men, “Please have separate shower times”; we don’t want to be mixing people up in the showers, of course. …
For the families, we don’t want to separate them. And that’s part of this whole bigger picture of making sure we have all these options available to all these different types of homeless populations. …
We want not only to maintain family units and couples and build this household unit, but we want to make sure that we’re also reconnecting. Sometimes in some cases with families, CPS (Child Protective Services) has already taken away children. This is a place to reconnect them and show CPS they’re working hard to stabilize their lives, whether it’s through parenting, alcohol or drug treatment programs, whatever it may be. …
At Hale Mauliola we’re now accommodating couples, and, of course, any homeless with pets …
It’s interesting, because at Hale Mauliola, … what this housing navigation center concept is, it’s a multi-service center where you can access all the services there on-site.
We actually designed these (Kaaahi and Sumner) shelters to also be multi-service centers, even though they’re still the old-school trend, being considered “shelters”…
Q: So, we’re here in a computer lab?
A: This is the Learning Center. One of our eight core services is employment programs. We help with job assistance, job placement, job coaching. For clients who just need help with their resumes, we’ll bring them down here, we’ll help them out.
We’ll take them upstairs to our Kokua Corner — it’s like a mini thrift shop. They can get dressed up and look nice and spiffy. We’ll put them through a mock interview classes, where we’ll let them get comfortable and used to that process. And we’ll take them to a job interview, help them the whole way. …
Q: Does it have limited hours? I mean, no one is here right now.
A: No, it’s open throughout the day. I think right now everyone’s just getting ready for lunch. What we try to do, just to maintain the safety and security of the whole facility, we want to make sure that everyone’s together. …
We are a 24/7 shelter. So if they want to sleep upstairs, they can sleep upstairs; if they want to come here, use computers, they can do that.
Q: Another misconception?
A: Absolutely. People think we kick them out during the day, and in fact that’s not the case. … I think the misconception was that Next Step Shelter was not a 24/7 shelter. People just kind of consolidated that message together. …
We want to be accommodating. We understand that a lot of clients, they work at night, and they need to sleep during the daytime.
Or if they don’t have a job quite yet, we want to make sure all services are available for them to access a job, access housing, work on their IDs, their state benefits, their programs. …
Q: (At Hale Mauliola) What staff do you have here now?
A: We have one operations staff all the time, and one case manager. … When you guys initially reported it, we had 10 units dropped; now it looks like we have 14.
Q: How many will there be eventually?
A: Twenty-six … (while staffer enters the entry code in a unit keylock pad). So, everyone gets their own separate code.
The only thing that you won’t see in here yet is actually our locker. If you were to close the screen door, the door is still unlocked. So we wanted to make sure they had extra security, so they’re going to be given an extra locker unit that were donated by the Honolulu Country Club, that we renovated. …
When the client comes here, they will meet with our operations staff. Everyone gets a welcome packet … It’s a very nice letter from (IHS Executive Director) Connie (Mitchell), kind of outlines — the rules are basically “nothing illegal” — what the amenities are here, pets, what we ask for.
Everyone gets a little hygiene kit, personal bedding. All of this is very hospitable.
Q: It does get warm in here, doesn’t it?
A: The architect actually planned this so that the units were dropped to take advantage of the breeze that can flow right through the window, in through the door. So if you open up the window, there is a breeze. And then, the trajectory of the sun should go over the shade cloth.
The trees were actually donated by HART (Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation). These were trees that they uprooted in Pearl City, along the middle ground area. They actually put them in the planter boxes for us.
This is a single unit —
Q: These are non-ADA?
A: Non-ADA, regular single units, yeah.
Q: Who did the little paintings?
A: Our staff … that was a fun little project. We wanted to be as artsy as we could. (Laughs)
Q: Is the shade cloth rain-resistant?
A: Yes, it is … (indicates the new clothesline for tenants) Baby steps. We get excited about the little things.
Q: Is there a laundry here yet?
A: That’s one of the things we learned about when we were meeting with the community. There’s actually a laundromat facility at the Sand Island Center. … They said, “Please come; it’s coin-operated, but please come.” …
We also have the shuttle that transports people from here three times a day to our shelter facilities. And they can use the laundry facilities there as well. …
The bus was donated by Roberts Hawaii. We have a full-time bus driver who is transporting our clients to these immediate areas or to our service centers. …
Of the 14 people living here, two have pets.
Q: Are the pets here?
A: They should be. They are allowed to stay in the units. Our official pet partner, by the way, is the Hawaiian Humane Society. They actually do our pet intakes. They make sure the pets don’t have fleas, ticks that kind of stuff. If they need the Pet Food Bank, they’ll give them access to that.
So when we say, “Loosen up the rules,” that means we don’t have curfew — although we have quiet time. We don’t want anyone blasting the radio at 2 a.m. …
We’re giving them more independence here at this facility, and then just giving them all of the services to access housing.
Q: What kind of feedback are you getting so far?
A: Amazing feedback, really. There was a lady, she was on the street for 14 years, here in Sand Island. We opened the week where there was all that rain. And all of her stuff just got soaking wet, broken. She came here just crying, and just thanking us, saying, “You know, I was just done — I couldn’t do this anymore.”
The other feedback we’re getting from people, they want to stay here, like long term.
Q: What’s the limit?
A: Two months.
Q: That’s not long.
A: It’s a housing navigation center. … Permanent housing is always the end goal. We definitely need more — assess what we need, assess the types and the amount of housing that is needed.
What we’re able to do right now is leverage a lot of existing inventory throughout the community, to get into that type of housing first, while the city is able to catch up on development.
We house, on average, 1,500 to 1,700 people a year, just at IHS alone, with that strategy in mind, just using existing inventory. That’s why the end goal has to be self-sufficiency, to make sure they can retain their units.…
So this is not housing. It’s a housing navigation center that gets them ready for it.
