It’s been a pretty bleak week for Honolulu’s struggle with homelessness.
First, the federal government found that the city’s structures for managing and spending federal grants for low-income housing and assistance services are a mess, causing the loss of more than $2 million in federal funding and putting $7.5 million more at serious risk.
Now, the city’s own auditor has raised serious questions about city programs that focus specifically on homelessness.
Read the full report here.
The newspaper summarized the report as follows: “A report by city Auditor Edwin Young gives the city’s initiatives to fight homelessness a lukewarm grade and slams Mayor Kirk Caldwell and his administration for lacking benchmarks and mismanaging programs aimed at sheltering people.”
Read the newspaper’s full coverage of the report here.
Some disturbing findings in the audit:
“Over the last five years, the number of unsheltered homeless increased 59% from 1,465 in 2013 to 2,324 in 2017″ while the number of sheltered homeless people has steadily dropped. (Page 2 of the report)
So in other words, nearly twice as many homeless people are now living on the streets and in parks as were in 2013, and far fewer are finding their way into shelters despite all the hoopla. That’s simply astounding.
“In 2017, Oahu’s chronically homeless population was 1,159.” (Page 2 of the report)
That means roughly half of the unsheltered homeless on Oahu are “chronically homeless,” which the report defines as “those with a diagnosed disability such as mental health and/or substance abuse issues that have been homeless for at least a year.”
“Hale Mauliola, (the camp on Sand Island that uses recycled shipping containers for housing) transitioned only 96 homeless into housing, falling short of its Year 1 goal of 250 homeless individuals.” (Page 7 of the report)
So the program didn’t even meet half its goal. That’s a huge failure. And how did the city address it? “The program continued into Year 2 with lowered performance goals and an increased budget of 15%.” That’s right, they moved the goal line much closer and threw more money at it. (Page 9 of the report)
“The city and state lack a comprehensive homeless plan to guide their respective efforts. Opportunities to leverage or pool resources, or build on the other’s efforts are lost. As a result, the city and state offer similar homeless programs. As an example, the state and city support Housing First programs, but the city’s program costs 48% more.” (Page 8 of the report)
So more than a decade into this devastating crisis, and after multiple declarations of a state of emergency, there still is no real plan to get us out of this mess. The state and city are still just putting out fires and throwing money at problems without working together effectively and preventing expensive and wasteful redundancies.
I just don’t know what to say.
We have to do better than this.
Honolulu Homeless Crisis 