Honolulu plans expansion of homeless housing and outreach

The city expects to announce two new tiny-home kauhale locations this year with a third to follow as Mayor Rick Blangiardi’s administration continues to look at ways to reduce homelessness while keeping struggling families from becoming homeless.

Anton Krucky, director of the city’s Department of Community Services, which oversees Honolulu’s homeless efforts, also told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that federal funds already have been sent to the city that will allow staffing for a second, COVID-19-era emergency pop-up shelter to be put back into use.

Krucky’s interview with the Star-Advertiser at Honolulu Hale followed this month’s unveiling of a new Institute for Human Services 24-hour triage center next to IHS’ shelter for homeless women and children.

When it opens in April, IHS’ eight-bed ‘Imi Ola Piha facility will be aimed at an underserved population of homeless clients suffering from mental health and substance abuse issues who are too unstable for a homeless shelter but not medically fragile enough to require paramedic services and treatment in a hospital.

The $13 million for the three upcoming kauhale comes from “congressionally directed funding,” formerly known as congressional earmarks.

Krucky declined to identify the locations — most likely on state or private land — before getting a buy-in from the communities.

And it’s yet to be determined whether the kauhale will be built as 120-square-foot tiny homes — like the state’s first kauhale in Kalaeloa — or created out of prefabricated homes, or some other concept.

But the city intends to use its upcoming kauhale tiny- home communities only as transitional shelter, not for permanent housing like the state, Krucky said.

The goal is to temporarily house homeless clients and families while giving them the tools and training to move into traditional, permanent housing, Krucky said.

The average stay likely will be two to three years while providing the occupants with child care, job training and other skills to move up to the next level of housing, Krucky said.

“That seems to be the sweet spot to be ready to move on,” he said.

Like the existing HONU (Housing, Outreach and Navigation for Unsheltered Persons), the second roaming pop-up shelter is aimed at getting homeless people off the street, where they can receive medical treatment and social service help including possible reunification with estranged families — on the way to possibly entering a traditional shelter or even into a fair-market Housing First apartment aimed at the chronically homeless, where they also receive social-service help.

The lone HONU is opera­ting at Hau Bush in Ewa Beach and is expected to return to Waianae in April, Krucky said.

Combined, the upcoming city kauhale, second HONU and IHS triage center represent the latest approaches to reducing homelessness on Oahu, where 3,951 people were considered homeless during the last Point in Time Count in March 2022.

The average life expectancy on the street is 53 years, or about 30 years shorter than the general population, according to the city.

Homeless Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders are disproportionately represented at 35% of the homeless population, compared with 10% of the general population.

At the same time that the city plans to create three new kauhale, it also expects to increase its fleet of Crisis Outreach Response and Engagement (CORE) vehicles and staff that meet homeless people on the street to divert them from costly ambulance trips and treatment at The Queen’s Medical Center.

Blangiardi’s multipronged approach is intended to address Oahu’s varying homeless demographics, including the chronically mentally ill, military veterans, kupuna and working families that lack the money for monthly rent.

“Homelessness is top of mind,” Blangiardi told the Star-Advertiser. “Fundamentally, it’s top of mind for everyone. These are brothers and sisters, and the street is not a home for anyone.”

His approach represents the latest evolution in addressing homelessness since one of the nation’s largest homeless encampments sprung up around Kakaako Waterfront Park in 2015. More than 300 people took up residence there after the city began enforcing a then-new sit-lie ban in Waikiki.

The Kakaako encampment exploded in plain sight and became a crisis when then-state Rep. Tom Brower photographed the encampment and its occupants, then was chased down and beaten by a mob in front of the Children’s Discovery Center.

As more sit-lie bans went into effect across Oahu and the gap continued to grow between income and housing costs, complaints about homeless people sprang out of nearly every Oahu neighborhood.

Blangiardi said he continues to hear concerns about homelessness nearly every day — even more than the city’s oft-criticized rail project.

His proposed budget would spend:

>> $10.2 million on Housing First.

>> $1.5 million for the Hale Mauliola Housing Navigation Center at Sand Island, the city’s first innovative shelter following the explosion of the Kakaako encampment and which still represents a blueprint for the city’s future kauhale.

>> $1.4 million for the Home Investments Partnerships program, which provides rental subsidies to keep families housed.

>> $1 million for the Puna­wai Rest Stop homeless hygiene center in Iwilei.

>> $1 million for CORE.

Blangiardi knows his administration cannot solve homelessness without partnering with nonprofit groups, churches, federal officials and Gov. Josh Green, who has made reducing homelessness one of his key issues.

Hale Mauliola was quickly built out of converted shipping containers.

More important, couples were allowed to live together and with their pets — both firsts on Oahu — while they received training and social service help with opportunities for permanent housing.

CORE launched in October 2021 in downtown and in Chinatown, then expanded to Waikiki in June.

From January to mid- October 2022, HONU served 714 homeless clients, with 437 placed in longer-term settings: 344 moved into shelters, 11 went into treatment and 31 were placed into permanent housing.

Eight years after Kakaako, following different types of homeless programs and housing across Oahu, Blangiardi said his administration is reinforcing programs that have shown success and taking different approaches.

“We’re starting to get momentum,” he said.