Ranks of homeless veterans starting to thin
The number of homeless military veterans on Oahu fell 44 percent between January and August, while the number of veterans becoming homeless each month also shows an encouraging decline.
Oahu is now among five metropolitan areas around the country that could become the first to meet a new standard of reducing chronic homelessness among veterans, according to Nate French, an improvement adviser for New York-based nonprofit group Community Solutions, which is helping county, state, federal and nonprofit representatives pro bono to reduce island homelessness.
| HELP FOR VETS WILL BE OFFERED AT EVENT
Groups working to reduce homelessness for military veterans and their families on Oahu will provide help at a “veterans stand down” at Ala Moana Regional Park on Friday. The event will be at McCoy Pavilion between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. and will include information on housing, employment, mental health and education benefits for veterans and their families. There will also be eye exams, personal supplies, haircuts and lunch. Representatives from the VA Homeless Programs Office, Catholic Charities Hawaii, the Institute for Human Services, Premier Benefits Consultants and others are scheduled to attend. For more information, call 433-0357 or email Misty.Kiyuna@va.gov. —— Star-Advertiser staff |
French, who is based in Los Angeles, was in Honolulu last week and has met with officials and social service agencies on Oahu four times in the past 18 months, trying to help reduce the nation’s highest per capita rate of homelessness.
At a meeting at the state Capitol on Wednesday that included officials tackling homeless issues for Gov. David Ige and Mayor Kirk Caldwell, French told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that progress is being made. He attributed the success in part to an unusual level of buy-in from the highest levels of local government and a network of social service agencies that are working together from a uniform list of every known homeless veteran on Oahu.
“You have such deep engagement from the state and city and VA (the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs),” French said. “We don’t see that in every community. You have all the right people at the table. … And it’s not just token leadership.”
Social service outreach workers meet every couple of weeks to review the status of all of the 183 known military veterans who were homeless on Oahu as of August, said Jun Yang, executive director of the city’s office of housing.
The number of homeless veterans on the island has fallen 44 percent since January, when 329 homeless veterans were on the so-called “by-name list” of homeless veterans who are known to social service outreach workers.
In June, the pipeline of newly homeless military veterans was being refilled at a rate of 24 newly homeless vets each month. But that number has since dipped to a statistical average of 21.5 newly homeless veterans each month.
| HOMELESS VETERANS
44% Decline in the number of military veterans on Oahu who were homeless from January to August. 329 Number of homeless veterans on Oahu who were known “by name” to social service outreach workers in January. 183 Number of known homeless military veterans on Oahu as of August. 24 Average number of veterans per month who were becoming homeless on Oahu as of June. 21.5 Current monthly average of newly homeless veterans on Oahu. 26.5 Average number of homeless veterans who are placed into housing each month on Oahu. 10% Percentage of people who have been homeless less than a year on Oahu who are from the mainland or another country. Source: Offices of Gov. David Ige, Mayor Kirk Caldwell and Community Solutions |
At the same time, the combined efforts to house veterans has resulted in a statistical average of 26.5 veterans finding housing on Oahu each month, French said.
While it’s unlikely that any metropolitan community will ever eliminate homelessness for every military veteran, officials on Oahu are working to reach “functional zero.”
To attain functional zero, the number of homeless veterans on the “by-name list” has to fall below the number of veterans getting housed each month, French said.
Honolulu is “among five communities that I feel are within striking distance (of reaching functional zero) maybe within the next year,” he said.
The others are Chicago; Riverside County, Calif.; Tucson, Ariz.; and Jacksonville, Fla., French said.
Between January 2015 and June, the combined efforts on Oahu resulted in finding housing for 747 veterans.
At the personal urging of first lady Michelle Obama, Caldwell accepted her “Mayors Challenge to End Veteran Homelessness.” But Honolulu fell shy of reaching “functional zero” at the end of 2015.
Both state and city officials have accepted a challenge from Community Solutions — “Zero: 2016” — to reach functional zero for Oahu’s chronically homeless veterans.
At the same time, more information is needed to figure out why the number of newly homeless veterans has taken a dip on Oahu, French said.
“That’s the next question people are asking,” he said.
Based on data collected from social service outreach workers, it’s clear that many of the newly homeless veterans are from the islands, Yang said.
“They’re not all coming from the mainland,” he said.
Scott Morishige, the state’s homeless coordinator, said that only about 10 percent of people on Oahu who have been homeless less than a year are from the mainland or another country, including military veterans.
“It’s really a small population,” Morishige said.
Yang added, “These are our families, our local families, who served in the military and served our nation. … For a long time, we didn’t respond in the appropriate way. Our system was not built out to do it. Now we’ve built out a system that is so much more improved than before.”
In October, Yang said, another “landlord summit” is being planned on Oahu to encourage fair-market landlords to take a chance on renting their units to homeless people, especially veterans.
“We have landlords that are still willing,” Yang said. “We appreciate what they’ve done and we’re going to ask them to do more.”
Marc Gannon, chairman of the board of directors of Partners in Care, said the efforts to reduce homelessness for military veterans on Oahu are now being applied across the board.
“Our work in this area with veterans was never intended to be isolated,” Gannon said. “It was intended to be a way of developing our system … and apply that learning to other targeted (homeless) subpopulations.”
17 responses to “Ranks of homeless veterans starting to thin”
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Roughly 45% of all homeless veterans are African American or Hispanic, despite only accounting for 10.4% and 3.4% of the U.S. veteran population. That means these two groups are less adept at mastering modern life.
Or, they have no p;lace to return to.
.. because they come from broken families.
…or because they broke all bridges through their behavior.
Or there are a bunch of racists posting in the comment section (just saying)
Or their communities are poor and lack basic services and opportunities, like jobs and education.
Not true, these are poor excuses. We as Americans have it made. Tons of jobs everywhere. Even fast food joints are begging to hire workers. Just look at the unemployment rates!
Basic services like water, electricity, shelter, food are all available everywhere and subsidized by the government in addition to charities throughout the US. Homes are so plentiful that you can even buy a (free and clear simple-fee deed) house in Detroit Michigan for $1,000 that is in livable condition.
Education? All public schools must meet US national education standards, there is no such thing as “no education” or “bad education” in certain neighborhoods, that mythical lie keeps propagating for some bizarre reason.
Their communities are poor because of the holy ghost? No they make their communities.
More than likely Allaha failed to do the required due diligence to identify the cause for higher homeless for African Americans and Hispanics. So they spin it with shibai.
It may be many in this group served in the combat arms branches of the services and do not have job skills directly transferable to the civilian work force. As in one who works on artillery, tanks, ordinance, infantry, etc, can’t just leave the service and move into a high tech job. However, with the right career counseling it is possible to translate training, experience, leadership/management and other areas into a entry level civilian position. Takes work, can be done.
It may be they have returned to their home towns which have high unemployment, the very reason they joined the military in the first place, to get a job. Yes they have an excellent GI bill to go to college for a degree or learn a new job skill. Today’s job search lives for a linked in account, social media presence, new requirements since they first joined.
Those who worked in military jobs with civilian equals – health care, information security, personnel, supply/logistics, communications, computer networking, so many other areas, usually make a smooth transfer to a new civilian career.
As we have seen, some may be suffering PTSD related health issues.
It in not unusual for rookie posters to try and explain their theory with this shibai comment, “That means these two groups are less adept at mastering modern life, because they come from broken families, or because they broke all bridges through their behavior.”
Clearly someone never met the high standards to serve in our armed forces, now has their tinfoil hat on, trying to give guidance on areas they haven’t got a clue. So laughable.
Ref: http://nchv.org/index.php/news/media/background_and_statistics/
The same statistic happen in cities with a high percentage of the 2 groups : Detroit, East Cleveland etc : Bankrupt due to inept people that they elect running them. And then they all clamor for outside help, that’s all they do.
Was there a point to our post? Just like the other one, no point. Just shibai. Sad.
localguy, keep voting in future years like you have been in the past and your rants about the choo-choo boondoggle will continue. Voters like you whom support incompetent big government to take care of every need are the problem and then you complain where all your tax dollars went as the imbeciles you voted for bankrupt your district!
That’s actually an encouraging statistic and it suggests that perhaps rather than looking at the homeless population as a single monolithic entity, it might be more efficacious to specifically target sub-groups within that population. I get the impression that a “one-size” solution doesn’t really fit all.
Exactly!!!
Yes!
Veteran or not, (and I am one) every calling in life has people that can make a go of it, and people that can’t. It maybe that person’s fault, or it may not. There may be good reason for it or there may not. Life is a roll of the dice, you get what you get.
Life is what you make of it. You are writing your own book.