Editorial: Expand homeless outreach centers

Most homeless people do, in fact, have a home. It’s the community in which many of them have lived for years, even if more recently there’s been no roof over their heads.

That’s the thinking behind the initiative of the nonprofit Hawaii Homeless Healthcare Hui to establish facilities known as Joint Outreach Center (JOC), a place that’s located within a community to help the homeless from that area.

A welcome addition to the envisioned network of such centers was celebrated Friday in Kaneohe, where the new JOC provides some health care for the homeless population’s immediate needs. This is a project that needs to be ramped up to replicate these facilities more quickly.

The Kaneohe center is well-located in a state building next to the Kaneohe Police Station, at the busy intersection of Kamehameha Highway and Waikalua Road; the fire station, regional library and neighborhood park are nearby in what already has served as a kind of civic center for the community.

And now there will be information on services and referrals to drug abuse and mental health treatment, all comprising a one-stop shop of guidance to accessible aid from the social safety net.

This center, modeled after the first JOC established in Chinatown and is part of a three-year pilot program meant to redirect many of the homeless who are now flooding hospital emergency rooms to such facilities.

The link to medical services, which are offered without regard to ability to pay, is filling the paramount need, but the JOCs also are becoming good points for the distribution of needed clothes, hygiene supplies and food. All of this is provided within reach of the homeless in Kaneohe and adjoining neighborhoods, which increases the likelihood that the target population will grasp that extended helping hand. And in the best-case scenario, maybe even move out of homelessness.

It’s obvious why this approach could be successful. It’s less plain why government is so slow to implement even simple projects, such as this one.

Four years ago, then-Council Chairman Ernie Martin established an islandwide program in which each of the nine Council members was allotted $2 million to create a tent city or homeless hygiene center.

With few exceptions, very few district initiatives have gotten off the ground.

For example, only Joey Manahan has helped to bring in a local hygiene center for district homeless: the Punawai Rest Stop opened last fall.

It’s true that tent cities have fallen out of favor as quick short-term sheltering options for community homeless. Leaders instead have preferred permanent or quasi-permanent “kauhale” collections of simple housing units gathered around common areas — although even these have not materialized — similar to the Kahauiki Village neighborhood established near Keehi Lagoon.

More recently, Councilwoman Kymberly Pine has proposed a similar proposal to urge Council members to devise “bold” ideas for the use of $2.3 million apiece. Clearly, past history suggests it’s the ideas that need to come up first, followed by the public financing.

And the Council has spent too much energy in wrestling over whether this need or that should be given top priority — so end up delaying action. In July, Council members Carol Fukunaga and Ann Kobayashi objected to a $4.5 million appropriation in state funds to provide case management for clients who have received Housing First vouchers, saying the medical needs of those on the street are more urgent.

What do Oahu homeless need most urgently? All of the above. More getting back to basics, such as what a JOC provides, is the right approach. Honolulu taxpayers deserve to see more action than argument — and even more importantly, so do those who have fallen homeless.