Column: ‘Housing first’ model better than shelters

Imagine coming home from work to a notice that the property you rent has been sold and you must vacate the place you call home in 45 days. If you’re lucky, there’s another unit available in your price range that doesn’t require you to relocate away from work, school and community. Others may have family they can stay with while they figure things out. But for some, a notice like this means houselessness.

As of January 2020, Hawaii had an estimated 6,458 experiencing houselessness on any given day, as reported by Continuums of Care to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The conventional response by our state and county governments has been to direct houseless folks toward temporary shelters; to get them off the streets and — ideally — connected with services. Honolulu uses law enforcement sweeps of houseless encampments to, supposedly, accomplish this.

However, this tactic is more likely to disperse people experiencing houselessness into communities than it is to direct them to shelters and services. That’s because — in reality — shelters don’t meet the diverse needs of everyone seeking shelter. Here are a few examples:

Shelters require a person to leave behind other resources and support networks in their community where they feel safe and are familiar.

Shelters often have eligibility requirements that automatically exclude some people, such as prohibiting children, pets, and people in need of mental health care.

Shelters often have waitlists to get in, which can vary from a day to an entire month.

Shelters don’t allow people to stay during the day or store their belongings.

Shelters operate on a first-come, first-served basis with no reserved beds, meaning a person could lose access to a bed on any given day.

Shelters are almost always temporary (e.g., 90-day maximum stay), at which point people automatically become unsheltered once again.

Shelters can be unsafe, unhygienic and dehumanizing places, and some people have trauma from past experiences that make them reluctant to go back.

Shelters are failing to meet people’s needs; is it any wonder that people continue to resist entering them?

If we want to solve houselessness, we need to look beyond the stop-gap shelter model toward a “housing first” model that guarantees housing to people as a human right.

Over the past 30 years, Finland has reduced its houseless population from approximately 20,000 people during the 1980s to about 4,000 people as of 2021. Finland accomplished this by making a conscious decision to shift from a shelter model to a housing first model, investing heavily to provide both stable, safe, clean homes and support services that address the unique needs of its housing insecure population.

Given Finland’s success with its housing first model, the Hawaii Housing Affordability Coalition (HiHAC), a collection of housing advocates from across the state, sent a delegation to the 2022 International Social Housing Festival in Helsinki to learn more.

The Hawaii delegation included policymakers, researchers, land trust representatives, tenants, and people who’ve experienced houselessness, participating in critical conversations around affordable housing with people from around the world to learn how to address what has become an international housing crisis.

A successful housing model:

>> Guarantees the right to housing;

>> Achieves affordability and sustainability in housing; and

>> Recognizes that quality of housing is quality of living.

HiHAC plans to continue the conversation back home with stakeholders across the state. It’s time to come together to develop a state affordable housing plan with real solutions to our crisis. If you are interested in joining this work with us, contact us at info@hihac.org. We look forward to co-creating an affordable Hawaii for all.

Chevelle Davis is an Affordable Housing for All Fellow, a joint effort of the Hawaii Appleseed Center for Law & Economic Justice and the Hawaii Alliance for Community-Based Economic Development; Aura Reyes, co-founder of Ka Poe o Kakaako, advocates for affordable housing solutions for all.