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Hawaii News

Hawaiis work to ease homeless

making progress, federal ocial
says
By Dan Nakaso
Posted June 22, 2017
June 22, 2017

CRAIG T. KOJIMA / MAY 29

Improvised shelters on state land along Nimitz Highway were removed by a city crew in early June.

Hawaii still has the highest per capita homeless population in the country but things
have started to gel in the islands, according to the western regional coordinator for
the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness.

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Its all just starting to work, Katy Miller, the Seattle-based regional coordinator, told
the Honolulu Star-Advertiser during a visit on Tuesday. If this momentum continues
we will see great progress.

The federal ocial got her rst look at Hawaiis homeless crisis in the summer of 2015
when she saw a then-sprawling Kakaako encampment that had grown to more than
300 people.

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Since then, state and city ocials have embraced best practices being implemented
around the country to deal with homelessness, and Hawaii is considered a leader in
changing homeless shelter contracts to make them more focused on getting people
into permanent housing, Miller said.

Through the state Department of Human Services, homeless coordinator Scott

Morishige really led the way in pushing island shelters to change, Miller said.

All of the cities are needing to do this, she said. In Seattle the city is embracing all of
the things Scott did with shelters, Miller said.

Shelter providers in Portland, Ore., like those in Hawaii, did not like the new focus on
so-called performance-based contracts, Miller said. It was very scary to people and it
didnt go over very well. But the reality is that it absolutely had to happen.

West Coast cities with lots of people living on the street really need to look at their
shelter system, Miller said. The goal is to make shelters a place where someone
wants to go into and lead to something better.

In the latest nationwide homeless head count conducted in January, Hawaiis homeless
population decreased 9 percent statewide. Honolulu was the only county that saw an
increase of 19 people.

Statewide, the number of homeless people decreased by 701, to 7,220 down from
the 7,921 counted in January 2016.

Based on the 2016 numbers, Hawaii had the highest per capita homeless rate in the
country. The newest rankings based on the January numbers wont come out until

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later this year.

Hawaiis homeless problem is driven primarily by the high cost of housing and not
the allure of year-round, warm weather that some believe draws homeless newcomers
to the islands, Miller said.

Around the country, Miller said people want to believe their communitys homeless
population is driven by outsiders.

In every single community the myth is: Why are they coming to my community? If I
build the services (for the homeless) well just get more. Its just not true, Miller said.

Wetter and much colder West Coast cities such as San Francisco and Seattle have
their own locally grown homeless problems.

During Januarys nationwide homeless Point-in-Time Count, King County, Wash., which
includes Seattle, saw its homeless population jump from 10,688 people in 2016 to
11,643 in January.

More alarmingly, the number of people living unsheltered there or on the streets
grew from 4,505 in 2016 to 5,485 in January.

What were seeing on the West Coast is large numbers of unsheltered people, Miller
said. Fundamentally its an aordable housing issue. If you dont get on top of it, its
going to get worse.

While state and city ocials look for ways to develop more aordable housing,
Morishiges oce has been holding training sessions for organizations, including the
state library system and Iolani Palace, on how to deal with homeless people on their
properties.

The homeless are likely well known to social service outreach workers. Morishige and
Marc Alexander, executive director of the citys Oce of Housing, said people can call
their oces to get connected to outreach workers.

The ongoing training is aimed at people who want to help but dont know how,
Morishige said.

Behind the scenes, Hawaii ocials, social service agencies, philanthropic organizations
and others are meeting to try to make fundamental changes in the way they operate
to better coordinate their eorts, Miller said.

Health care providers are regularly talking to Health Department ocials to nd ways
to adjust Medicaid to help the homeless and simultaneously control health care costs.

And a so-called funders collaborative that includes the Hawaii Community

Foundation and Aloha United Way since November has been looking at all of the
homeless data to align the funding that already exists so it can be more eective and
ecient, Morishige said.

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A similar group of philanthropists in Los Angeles has really driven action and brought
new money and resources to the table, Miller said. King Countys funders group really
has maximized investments. Everyone knows what each other is funding and setting
priorities.

Miller continues to visit the islands every few months, meeting with people across the
state working to reduce homelessness.

Each time, she said, Were steps ahead. Groups are coming together and there is
progress being made. Theres a lot more work to happen. But all of the right work is
happening now.

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