Following last month’s plea from Gov. David Ige and Mayor Kirk Caldwell, at least 80 Oahu landlords and property managers are now willing to rent their units to low-income and homeless people in an effort to keep some of them off the streets.

Included in the group is one property owner who’s stepping up even after low-income renters ended up costing her more than $16,000.

During last month’s Landlord Summit in the Dole Cannery ballroom, Victoria Roy told a roomful of attendees that her experience renting to low-income, drug-using tenants eight years ago left the bottom half of her Ewa Beach home a wreck.

The tenants burned her carpet, destroyed doors and punched a hole in the bathroom wall, costing Roy $15,000 in repairs, $5,000 for an attorney and $700 to sheriff’s deputies to get the tenants out.

But, like at least 79 other landlords across Oahu, Roy is now willing to again open up her rental property to low-income or homeless people.

“My greatest fear is what I experienced before,” Roy said. “But I’m willing to help to be a part of the homeless solution. I’m willing to try again.”

Roy’s offer — along with the other landlords’ — represents a critical part of the overall effort to find housing on an island with the highest per capita rate of homelessness in the country.

“The result was more than what we could have asked for,” said Myoung Oh, director of government affairs for the Hawaii Association of Realtors, which partnered with Ige to organize last month’s summit that was attended by 337 social service workers, landlords, property managers, government officials and others.

Following the summit, Oh said that at least 80 landlords and property managers offered their units for low-income and homeless tenants.

Scott Morishige, the state’s homeless coordinator, said one organization offered to let a social service agency use its entire building under a master lease.

“That’s a really good sign that people were willing to immediately offer up potential units,” Morishige said. “We continue to make progress in dealing with our homeless situation statewide.”

While the number of landlords and property owners offering to help is encouraging, the city’s executive director of the office of housing, Jun Yang, said one of the greatest successes was seeing landlords such as Roy willing to take a second chance.

During her remarks at the summit, Yang said, Roy appeared to be “blasting the idea.”

“But I know that something stuck,” Yang said. “We’ve also gotten phone calls from people who say they don’t have units now, but once they’re available they want to participate with us. We’ve had people who have never done Section 8 (low-income vouchers) before who are now … saying, ‘We’re interested. What do we do next?’”

To encourage even more landlords, Yang said Caldwell’s administration is revisiting an idea from the City Council to develop some sort of fund to help pay for any damage caused by low-income or homeless tenants.

“We’re trying to figure out how to make it work,” Yang said. “We need to make them (landlords) feel more comfortable. We’re all talking about it.”

Under the so-called “Housing First” concept, formerly homeless tenants would be allowed to drink or use drugs while receiving help from social service workers with their issues.

Low-income tenants would likely use Section 8 vouchers to cover their rent. And homeless people would pay about 30 percent of the monthly rent, with many renters drawing on government assistance. The balance would be covered through Housing First government money, which typically also covers property damage.

Roy currently has a tenant living month-to-month upstairs in her two-story, six-bedroom home. The tenant could be out as early as January, in which case Roy would move upstairs and rent out the bottom half to a low-income or homeless tenant.

For three bedrooms, a bathroom, living room, kitchen, carport, Wi-Fi, cable, utilities and coin-operated laundry, Roy plans to charge $2,300 in monthly rent.

“If they can afford it, I’m willing to rent to anybody, even if they’re homeless,” Roy said. “Even though I had a bad experience, I’m willing to be part of the solution.”

This time, Roy hopes things turn out better. If so, she wants to see her effort “encourage even more landlords.”