Get families in housing, ASAP

It seems simplistic to suggest that the cure to homelessness is housing. It is simplistic — there are often complex social and physical ailments that start the downward spiral into homelessness that must be addressed, or the rescued person or household ends up back on the streets again.

It’s not entirely wrong, though. Getting people off the streets and housed as quickly as possible — or preventing them from falling into homelessness to begin with — is the most powerful first step in the recovery process.

You can see it in the faces of children who, with their families, are the targets of a private program called HousingASAP, first organized by Hawaii Community Foundation three years ago.

The program has a video posted online that sheds light on its work, including the statistic that 714 Hawaii families have been moved off the street in 2-1/2 years.

In the recent Hawaii Poll conducted for the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, 42 percent of 800 people surveyed said they think homelessness has grown worse over the past year. At a time when at least the public perception has grown dimmer, the brighter outlook of HousingASAP’s encouraging success is welcome.

The approach adopts the basic philosophy of the pre-eminent Housing First program. This means placing the priority on getting people to stable housing where they can feel secure from the crime on the streets and from being dispersed, their possessions scattered, by the authorities.

But it leverages the collected knowledge of its entire coalition to help speed the relocation of families through cooperative networking. The association, which this year grew from the original eight agencies to 14, aims to work collaboratively toward a goal of what’s called “functional zero” homelessness for families.

That means getting ahead of the cycle of homelessness by rehousing families within 30 days — more families than those who join the homeless population during that time.

This isn’t easy, especially given the shortage of affordable rental inventory. Even worse, most landlords hesitate to rent their property to homeless families for fear of not getting their rent, of potential property damage and other concerns.

A strategy being tried within the coalition is for an agency to serve as a property manager, handling the problems and collecting the rent, essentially taking responsibility and ensuring that the landlord gets paid on time. The hope there is to build trust among the landlords to participate.

Further, with the support of the foundation, the partners are working to improve how they gather and maintain data on the families’ histories and circumstances, and thus stay on top of their progress.

This will be essential to the long-term success of the family-centered initiative. Managing cases and directing needed social services to these households can steer them toward more self-reliance. Social-service outreach needs to be targeted correctly and intensive in order to be effective, long-term.

Acknowledging the challenges, Scott Morishige, state homelessness coordinator, said the state’s own management of resources for homelessness has been shaped by the HousingASAP successes.

For example, the coalition has applied a staff training component to increase its capacity, and similar methods have been adopted in state and county contracts to homeless service providers, Morishige said.

The program’s video encapsulates the importance of this work. Among other startling figures, it cites a federal Department of Education study showing homeless children suffering from emotional and behavioral problems at three times the average rate.

These families need help urgently. The real impact of failure to provide it will be felt for generations to come.