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When it comes to finding solutions to help homeless people off the streets and toward shelter, street cred goes a long way. It’s invaluable, in fact — since those who work those streets encounter the daily difficulties, whether they be outreach social workers, emergency and medical personnel, or police officers.
So when Honolulu Police Department members broach an innovative project like “lift zones,” it should be welcomed for its possibilities, not dismissed without trying.
The intriguing concept envisions pop-up shelters: 18×23-foot inflatable tents in a section of park that, for 60-90 days, would serve as a hub for immediate shelter but also offer direct access to social service workers, to transition the homeless toward more lasting help.
Proposed by HPD Capt. Mike Lambert before the Honolulu Police Commission last month and City Council last week, specific park rules would be “lifted” temporarily to enable the inflatable mobile navigation center to triage homeless people toward help while in a safe, sanitary space.
Rather than simply rousting and scattering encampments from one neighborhood to another, the mobile center aims to shrink homelessness numbers with on-site help, filling a need when fixed-shelter beds aren’t available — even perhaps when off-site help is rejected. It’s a creative and nimble model worth trying — a pop-up version of the city’s Hale Mauliola on Sand Island or the state’s Family Assessment Center in Kakaako, but without the permanent intrusion on park space.
HPD’s proposal calls for 10 tents at $15,000 apiece: each tent can be inflated in under 10 minutes to provide 414 square feet of space, and is designed for mobility and weather-resistance (fire-rated, UV coated, waterproof and 35 mph wind-rated).
City attorneys are now reviewing the park laws and necessary exemptions for a pilot project, which is being proposed as a state-funded, city-operated one that HPD would help coordinate.
The lift zones seem to dovetail well with an intent of the 2017 Legislature, which allocated $30 million to open six “ohana zones” statewide, on state or county land, to tackle homelessness. Such zones are not perfect, of course, because permanent housing — not “tent cities” — should be the lasting goal. But here’s the harsh reality: today’s supply of affordable rentals falls far short of actual demand. Clearly, moving homeless people off the streets, even those eager to move, will not be quick or easy.
The city and HPD are finalizing a request to tap some of the “ohana zones” millions for this lift zones pilot; initial equipment purchase and annual operating cost is estimated at less than $3 million.
HPD said the responses so far from state and city officials have been positive, so that’s encouraging. Social service providers — again, those front-line workers —
have been expressing a need for navigation centers to assist in moving people off the street and into shelter or related services.
Community buy-in, of course, will be a key element. Certain parks are being studied but none chosen yet — and prior to setting up any tents at any location, HPD and its partners plan to meet with neighborhood boards and residents to provide information. One would think that having a temporary lift zone working to decrease homeless tents in the neighborhood park, would be preferable to allowing encampments to remain, unchallenged.
Hawaii has among the nation’s highest per capita rate of homelessness — nearly 4,500 on Oahu. And though Oahu’s “Point in Time” count last January dropped about 9 percentage points from the previous year, the unsheltered population grew in areas such as the Waianae Coast, Ewa, East Honolulu and Waikiki.
Deploying portable tents with services into known hot spots seems worth trying. It could well help to reduce homeless numbers in future counts — but more importantly, might just get people to the life-changing help and home they need.
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