Hawaii to pay to return homeless people back to mainland

The state of Hawaii will pay to send homeless people back to the mainland as long as they have someone to welcome and house them there.

The Hawaii-backed plan to provide $100,000 in airfare over each of the next two fiscal years to send homeless people back to the mainland belies the persistent urban legend that Hawaii’s homeless population is driven by cities, counties and state governments on the mainland that send their homeless people to the islands.

The funding, provided in the latest version of House Bill 1366, follows previous efforts in Hawaii to return homeless people to the mainland driven by the Hawaii Lodging and Tourism Association working with the Institute for Human Services, which operates Hawaii’s biggest homeless shelters, Kauai Economic Opportunity and Maui Family Life Center.

State Rep. John Mizuno (D, Kamehameha Heights- Kalihi Valley) separately has paid for airfares out of his own pocket to send more than 50 homeless people back to the mainland and their families.

Mizuno complained to New York officials that they were dumping their homeless in Hawaii with no support.

Hawaii’s “return to home” plan will work, Mizuno said, because it relies on a support network of family and friends on the mainland.

“New York failed,” he said. “Hawaii will not. We have the blueprint. This will work because we are reuniting them with family.”

The overwhelming number of homeless people in Hawaii are from the islands, said James Koshiba, the state’s homeless coordinator.

But the new state funding could also benefit local homeless people who may be welcomed by family now living in places such as Las Vegas “who say, ‘Uncle, come home and live with us,’” Koshiba said. “This is a valuable resource. I’m glad the Legislature saw fit to put resources into it.”

The Hawaii Lodging &Tourism Association, working with its partner organizations, has paid for half of the airfares to send 744 homeless people from the mainland back to friends and family between 2014 and 2019.

With the new state funding, Mufi Hannemann — HLTA’s president and executive director — hopes his organization also can partner with a Big Isle organization to send the island’s homeless people back home.

“We only pay half the fare and expect family and friends to pay the other half,” Hannemann said. “I just know that it works. … We’ve got to try everything.”

The new state funding for a three-year pilot program represents just one part of the effort to reduce island homelessness, including the Legislature this session funding $15 million in fiscal year 2024 and $33 million in fiscal year 2025 to build more than 20 tiny-home kauhale villages across the islands for permanent housing for homeless people surrounded by social service help.

This year the number of homeless people on the neighbor islands increased by 9% overall, including a 5% decrease on Maui, according to January’s annual Point in Time Count.

The three counties overall saw 173 more homeless people — up from 2,022 in 2022 to 2,195.

Oahu’s 2023 Point in Time Count data is expected to be released in late May.

In the 2022 Point in Time Count, 3,951 homeless people were counted across Oahu.

The “return-to-home pilot program,” as it’s called, is voluntary to participants and is intended to include “non-profit organizations, for-profit organizations and foundations,” according to HB 1366.

Any homeless people in Hawaii who want to fly home who are “on parole, probation, or awaiting a court hearing or sentencing” must have court approval to leave Hawaii, according to the bill.

The pilot project, to be administered by the state Department of Human Serv­ices, requires that homeless people be helped with acquiring proper ID, transportation to the airport and “ensuring sufficient personal hygiene.”

In addition, the latest version of the bill says, “The return-to-home pilot program shall actively seek the participation of local airlines, cruise lines, charter companies, homeless programs, travel agencies, and the visitor industry to coordinate and implement the pilot program.”

In support, IHS Executive Director Connie Mitchell wrote that IHS “has been operating a homeless relocation program since 2015, when we were granted seed funds from the Hawaii Lodging and Tourism Association to address the many transient homeless encountered in Waikiki. … The program has by all accounts been a success, and at its peak pre-COVID, was successful in relocating over 100 people each year. In the past 8 years, we have helped relocate over 600 people from Oahu primarily to the mainland U.S. and neighbor islands.

“Over the past two years, we have seen a consistent number of out-of-state visitors, and at any given time we see that around 10-20% of both our outreach and shelter programs are not local.

“There are many people looking to return to their families and more affordable cities. If there were dedicated staff and consistent funding to this program, we could work more quickly to identify serious candidates for the program, connect to their support networks, and help return people home expeditiously. I believe this would save our state much more in benefit and healthcare dollars.”