The Roof: The NPACH Blog

This article from the New York Times hits on three important key points:

The impact of a "booming" housing market on low income residents.

Homelessness prevention as a solution.

An acknowledgement that many, many homeless people work or have other income but can't afford housing and don't fit the profile of "the chronic homeless" being pushed by the Bush administration.

The New York Times:

HONOLULU, Dec. 4 — When the home she had rented for 30 years for $300 a month was sold, Alice Greenwood and her 6-year-old son joined an estimated 1,000 people living in tents along the 13 miles of beaches on the Waianae Coast of Oahu.

“There was no choice but to come on the beach,” said Ms. Greenwood, 60, who is disabled because of a work-related injury eight years ago and lost her benefits a month before losing her home.

Homelessness in Hawaii has become so pervasive that the governor has assigned a state employee to work full time at getting people off the beaches and into transitional housing. Once there, they have access to rent assistance programs and low-income housing. . .

. . . Hawaii’s economy has been strong in the last two years, and the state consistently has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the nation. The real estate market has skyrocketed along with the job growth, and houses on the Waianae Coast that rented for $200 or $300 a month a couple of years ago are now advertised for more than $1,000.

Honolulu officials say finding long-term solutions to the homeless problem on Oahu is the state’s responsibility. The city’s housing department was abolished in the late 1990s after a scandal.
Mr. Park has been talking with New York City officials about how to adapt New York’s solutions to an island state.

He said he was inspired by a speech last summer by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York, who told of how the city had secured financing for some 12,000 units of supportive housing, and of the city’s program to help people stay in their homes by interceding with landlords to head off evictions. Hawaii has started a similar program.

In late October, the state opened a transitional shelter for 30 families, including 90 children, at a converted 1940s military building in Kalaeloa, the former Barbers Point Naval Air Station.

On Nov. 18, the state poured the foundation for an emergency transitional shelter in Waianae that will house up to 300 people when it opens early next year. The state is looking at building shelters at eight more sites along the Waianae Coast.

But Dino Palisbo, who has been living at Maili Beach Park with his girlfriend and their three dogs for about a year, said some people did not want to trade the freedom of the beach for the rules of a transitional shelter. “Half of them can pay rent, but it is so high it is going to take them out of the comfort zone,” Mr. Palisbo said. “When a studio costs $700 or $800, how can a family put four or five kids there?”

Others, like Ms. Greenwood, did not want to leave their communities for the state’s shelter at Kalaeloa, which is 10 miles from the beach park and several miles from the nearest bus route. She plans to move to the new shelter in Waianae, set to open next spring, because it is closer to her son’s school and her community activities.

Mr. Park said other homeless people on the beach looked up to Ms. Greenwood, who is a member of the state’s Oahu Island Burial Council, which works to protect ancient Hawaiian remains. A widow, she also has four adult children, but the only daughter who lives nearby has a studio apartment too small for Ms. Greenwood and the boy she adopted, Makalii Hatchie.

“She takes it upon herself to be somewhat of a leader,” Mr. Park said.

Ms. Greenwood said she hoped to begin collecting Social Security benefits and settle her workers’ compensation case soon so that she and her son could find a new home.

“Being homeless is not a crime, it is the fault of the government,” she said. “I can understand when it’s 20, 30 people, but when it hits the thousands. ...”