Harris seeks all-purpose center
| • | Homelessness reaches 'critical mass' in Wai'anae |
By James Gonser
Advertiser Urban Honolulu Writer
To avoid pushing Honolulu's homeless population from one area to the next, Mayor Jeremy Harris wants to set up a $6 million homeless center that would meet the needs of the population, getting them off the streets and into assistance programs and eventually permanent housing.
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"The idea is to have a facility where these people can come in, do the evaluation, put them in the necessary program whatever it is, have a job training facility, a place for mothers with children, whatever," Harris said. "But to have one comprehensive center providing all the services they need."
"If we don't solve the underlying problem, just providing facilities doesn't solve anything," Mayor Jeremy Harris said.
Harris has included money for his "campus-like facility" in his fiscal year 2004 budget, which must be approved by the City Council. The project would be paid for through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and run by a nonprofit organization.
Harris said any homeless person could enter the facility and live there until given appropriate healthcare and job-training services and will be helped to find a home of their own.
"They would get the necessary treatment to solve their underlying problems," Harris said. "If we don't solve the underlying problem, just providing facilities doesn't solve anything."
The city has been criticized for pushing the homeless populations out of 'A'ala Park, Fort Street Mall and Ala Moana Beach Park to clean up those areas and forcing those people out with no place to go.
There are more than 7,000 homeless people on O'ahu, according to state figures, and O'ahu's homeless shelters are constantly filled to capacity.
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The homeless population is served by dozens of groups that target specific needs among the street people from mental illness and drug addiction to those that have lost their jobs or simply drop out of society.
"Permanent housing means you don't have to leave and supportive means it is enriched with services," said Lynn Maunakea, executive director of the Institute for Human Services.
Many charity groups provide free meals and temporary shelter to the homeless, but some still go hungry and sleep in parks and doorways.
Harris said part of the problem is there are too many groups to be effective.
"What we have now is a multiplicity of centers each dealing with a little corner of the problem," Harris said. "One nonprofit does their best with their little 17 rooms for the homeless and somebody else has a soup kitchen. They are all providing needed services but not dealing with it in a comprehensive way."
An all-purpose center would do away with the duplication of administrative services at each individual nonprofit saving time and money, he said, and would be large enough to provide space for hundreds of people.
Lynn Maunakea, executive director of the Institute for Human Services, said she hasn't seen the specifics of the mayor's plans, but said most federal programs today are taking a different approach by targeting the chronically homeless, including people with serious mental health and substance abuse problems.
A report by Dennis Culhane of the University of Pennsylvania discovered that 10 percent of the homeless are chronically homeless and use about half of all resources targeted for the homeless.
Maunakea said targeting this group is a national priority of the Bush administration and providing permanent supportive housing for this group will save money and get the people hardest to provide services for off the streets.
"Permanent housing means you don't have to leave and supportive means it is enriched with services," Maunakea said. "The chronically homeless individuals have some major problems. These people need stability and to know that this is their home."
Reach James Gonser at jgonser@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-2431.
