Editorial: Maintain funding for Housing First

Last year, after the Legislature appropriated $30 million over a three-year period for the state’s “ohana zones” program — initially envisioned as government-sanctioned homeless camps — Gov. David Ige released a funding plan that widened the scope to include expanding emergency shelter space, renovating shelters and supporting permanent housing for the homeless.

The Ige administration has designated a $4.5 million slice to the city, which intends to use it to help provide case management services for clients who receive housing vouchers to live in 60 units under an expansion of the city’s Housing First program.

But now, with Honolulu Hale poised to accept the state money, two City Council members, Carol Fukunaga and Ann Koba­yashi, want to switch gears, maintaining that funding should instead be focused on providing medical services and treatment beds for homeless individuals.

Their move has triggered a sort of double-check process — slated to get underway today before the Council Budget Committee — in which the intended use of the ohana zone funding is detailed, and the full Council votes on the matter. The Council should take the money and use it, as planned, for strengthening its ongoing Housing First effort.

Nationally recognized as an effective and efficient approach to helping people get off of the streets permanently, Housing First provides housing that comes with supportive services to help clients contend with issues such as mental illness, substance abuse, job training and placement, and other life skills.

Given that the target is the tough-to-reach chronically homeless individual — sometimes living on the streets for decades — Honolulu’s effort is showing promise. Since fall 2014, the city has issued 315 Housing First vouchers, with 86% of clients remaining in housing while 73% report not using illegal drugs.

The Council should seize the opportunity to team up with the state for a proposal through which the city covers the price tag for Housing First rent while the state’s ohana-zones program pays for “wrap-around” supportive services.

The Council members looking to redirect spending point out that the need for more medical services to help mentally and physically ill homeless individuals is urgent in their districts — Fukunaga’s District 6 includes portions of downtown, and Kobayashi’s District 5 reaches into stretches of Ala Moana and Kakaako; and both include parts of Makiki.

Fukunaga wants to see a funding switch prioritizing projects such as hygiene centers, similar to the Punawai Rest Stop, which Councilman Joey Manahan welcomed in his District 7 earlier this year.

The rest stop in Iwilei — a “compassionate” element in the city’s sensible “compassionate disruption” strategy for addressing homelessness — is attracting a steady slow of clients as it offers services ranging from hot showers to free Wi-Fi on a set of laptops as well as some medical services, which aim to help reduce a high volume of emergency room visits.

Another pot of money could be available for such projects, as the Council recently approved a $23 million initiative through which each of the nine Council districts would get $2.3 million to combat homelessness with community projects. Fukunaga and Kobayashi should first try to tap that potential funding to step up the presence of medical services. Slowing Housing First progress is not a wise option.

While drafting parameters of the ohana-zones program, state lawmakers noted a pattern emerging in recent years in which the number of unsheltered individuals climbed while the count of people in shelters declined — despite increased investment in shelters and enforcement.

Housing First holds potential to shake that pattern, and spur progress against Honolulu’s status as having the nation’s highest metro area per capita homelessness rate.