Federal report: Hawaii has nation’s highest rates of chronic homelessness, youth without shelter

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - A new federal report shows the number of homeless people in the U.S. jumped 12% over the past year -- with Hawaii seeing some of the highest rates in the country.

In the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s 2023 Annual Homeless Assessment Report released Friday, Hawaii had the highest percentage of people experiencing chronic homelessness.

On a single night in January this year, more than 76% of the homeless in Hawaii were counted on the streets or in parks and vehicles — the highest in the country, followed by California and Oregon.

Hawaii also had the third highest rate of homeless youth staying in unsheltered locations.

State Rep. Della Au Belatti, Health and Homelessness Committee chair, said she’s disappointed with the numbers. “The Legislature had agreed to in concept and recognize the need for behavioral crisis centers to deal with some of the chronic homelessness we see on the streets where we need to stabilize people who may be experiencing substance abuse or mental health issues. ... We failed to fund that,” she said.

Andrew Umialiloa Sexton III lives just walking distance from Ulehawa Beach Park, which is a nearly 60 acre stretch overrun by homeless.

He and other residents are not surprised by the results of the annual report.

“Over the past few years, there’s been a lot more tents that has been popping up,” said Sexton. “There’s a lot more homeless people that has been showing up and a lot of these people are not from here.”

“Yeah expensive,” said Waianae Resident John Poomaihealani. “Like I said some of these people get jobs, just no can afford to buy one home.”

The annual snapshot shows soaring housing costs and ending pandemic aid led to a record number of people living in shelters, temporary housing and unsheltered settings.

Many became homeless for the first time.

Connie Mitchell, executive director of the Institute for Human Services, which operates shelters, says there is a silver lining — Hawaii doesn’t have the dramatic jumps seen nationally.

That’s a sign local services are helping minimize the impact of broader economic challenges.

She said nationally, homelessness jumped 12%. Statewide, it rose 4.1%.

Veteran homelessness nationally rose 7.4%, while the number was flat in Hawaii. The number of homeless families grew 15.5% nationwide, while it increased 4.7% in the islands and about 2% on Oahu.

While those figures reflect the hard work being done to address homelessness, Mitchell said the challenge is securing more funding for frontline workers and social services.

“You talk about the unaccompanied youth, if we had more programs that were really addressing the needs of runaway youth, that might make a big difference,” she said.

“The request to the Legislature, and to the governor has been to really increase the budget for a lot of these nonprofit organizations that have been on the front line who are really dealing with homelessness, but not only homelessness ... programs that really contribute to helping to prevent homelessness.”

Homeless advocates say solutions require multiple approaches, including housing and stabilization centers that help transition folks from the streets to shelter.

“The chronic homelessness is driven a lot by the fact that people can live unsheltered here, number one, I think the other one is that we have a combination of very high rents here, and a job market that doesn’t necessarily pay a living wage,” Mitchell said.

“We hope that Hawaii’s model to address homelessness with villages of very inexpensive tiny homes (we will build 12 or more fast), harm reduction through universal healthcare access, and breaking down barriers to build housing (emergency proclamation), will gradually become one of the national solutions. We expect to cut homelessness by 50% in 4 years with our model,” said Gov. Josh Green, in a statement to HNN.

Au Bellati added there are questions about where the funding should go.

“We need to continue to fund those programs that have worked,” she said.