Landlords step up to aid homeless
DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARADVERTISER.COM
Victoria Roy says she plans to make the bottom portion of her Ewa Beach home available for rental to the homeless. Low-income renters once lived there, but the damage they did endedup costing her thousands of dollars. Roy said she is now willing to try again.
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.”
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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.”
39 responses to “Landlords step up to aid homeless”
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By definition, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and hoping for a different outcome!!
serious(ly), I guess you’ve never been a landlord. I have, and my experience was very similar to what Victoria went through. It’s not insane to rent your property to tenants and expect good results. It’s part of business. You’re NOT doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. But serious(ly), it REALLY does feel good to “parrot” that sentence, doesn’t it?
I am and have been a landlord for many, many years and I do not rent to Section 8 nor some “other” groups from past experience. I have learned–it is insane to rent to that class of tenants and expect different results.
Retired, Have you ever had a meth head cook meth in your house? If, when it happened just give it back to the bank. You will have to remove everything down to the framing and that’s done by a HAZMAT team. and You the owner will pay for it.
Sec 8 don’t know how to keep up a house that’s why they are what they are.
Yep! Like we voted for W. Bush, twice.
And you voted for Obama Twice…
Third term for O if I could.
There is something wrong with this idea that “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.”
I was thinking about that. And I came to the conclusion they have to be out of the environment first. Then the help they need can be much more productive. In most groups . like AA, they get on a program and get moving in the right direction.
If they “use drugs”, arrest them and put them in jail. That will get them off the streets. Renters will use “section 8”, draw “government assistance”, and the balance to be covered by “government money”? How long will these “renters” be able to freeload off the backs of the hard working, struggling to pay their own rent or mortgage non-homeless taxpayers? And with our government’s track record of ACCOUNTABILITY, how long before this program gets LOST in the shuffle with the rest of our governments so called “Programs” and just becomes MORE dead weight to the taxpayers.
The city, by allowing illegal drug use will face a lawsuit from someone injured by a whacked out guy on ice. Caldwell is an id..t
Ige should give each landlord a free, five million dollars in liability insurance for housing his people.
Being a landlord is like buying a job.
It takes a special person to be a landlord. The return on investment(ROI) is good, especially with the paid off mortgage(s). Still, ya gotta take the good with the bad, like deadbeat tenants and the ones who trash the place. It’s much easier being a condo landlord; there’s only so much damage that bad tenants can do. I had my share of damages as a landlord, but I also reaped the financial benefits. Would I rent to the homeless? Yes, on a case-by-case basis. That is, if the government sent me the rent check directly. That’s what they did, when I rented to welfare clients.
“ya gotta take the good with the bad”—you must be making this up. You screen tenants, credit report, check the second back landlord for a reference. It’s easy to put a tenant in and if they are bad, it’s a disaster. The law is not friendly to Landlords.
serious(ly), I’m not “making this up”, as you say. Of course you go with the credit checks and references. You also go with the “gut feeling”. Another option is to use a management company to do all the work of interviewing, selecting, accepting payments, managing, evicting, etc. If you’re like “serious”, you only rent to the best qualified and not take chances on the working homeless. They are a risky investment. It’s all about $$ and what you own, not taking a chance on a bad “investment” of the working homeless. These people probably have bad credit, poor references from landlords who evicted them for non-payment. Of course this “serious” poster would NEVER take a chance of renting to people who did not meet up to his strict standards as a landlord. The Aloha spirit is only for good tenants. So of course this serious poster would consider it insane to rent to a homeless family, even if they’re the working homeless. Like I mentioned, I’ve had my share of disasters. Basically, you win some and you lose some. Every swing doesn’t get you on base, every carry or pass goes for positive gains, every shot doesn’t make a basket. Every stock choice doesn’t gain like Apple, Google, Netflix.
Yep! And try kicking them out. You will need a act of Congress to do so while they trash your home at your expense.
Retired, Serious can write a book on owing rentals. He owned and managed over 300 rentals at one time. You “never” give the keys to one of your homes without the proper research. As far as having a property management running a background check? They have to put people into your house that you, as the owner would never put into your home. Like Serious said, the laws are made for the tenants, not the owners.
Wait. She’s helping the homeless by charging $2300 rent……yyyyyyeahhh. I don’t know about that. I’d stay away if I was you. If you’re going to charge that kind of money, may as well rent to those you can trust. I just can’t rent my units to homeless after seeing how they treat our own land and their surroundings in their tent sites. One really does shape their own destiny in life.
HAJAA1 says “I just can’t rent my units to homeless after seeing how they treat their own land and their surroundings in their tent sites”. That’s a biased statement if I ever read one, unless that was the EXACT homeless family you were considering as tenants. Of course it wasn’t. HAJAA1 also stated “One really does shape their own destiny in life”. Yeah, tell that to the homeless kids when they become adults. “Brothers, you really DID shape your own destiny in your life(as homeless kids). A wise man known as HAJAA1 once said that.
I suspect she’s having a difficult time finding tenants at that price and wants to go for the guaranteed Section 8 subsidy.
Or she’s raising the rent because government (taxpayers) will be paying the rent.
It appears that on many $2000.00+ rentals you get section 8 applicants and working families can’t afford
them but welfare moms can. Horrible programs that get your homes trashed.
Front page? But the landlords haven’t actually done anything yet. This might be a page 7 two inch story. We see lot of these stories, but then nothing happens.
How about this? Renting to homeless, whether they be working non-substance abusing families or full-on abusers is a variably huge risk. If the government could assume the liability, that might be the determining factor. If landlords would be allowed to charge higher rent due to higher risk, that might be attractive. If a unit rents for $2,000 monthly, Government pays $2800 monthly, homeless tenants pay what they can to the government. Of course, we as taxpayers would shoulder the burden. What’s your plan? Are we our brothers’ keepers?
Homeless will always seek in a pet.
This will probably result in the first state-sponsored ice-lab.
retire, there goes the neighborhood. You could be right, but would you condemn thousands of homeless of a decent place to live, in the event of that possibility? I’m not trying to put you down.
Is this woman some kind of stupid? Burnt before by homeless thugs and wants to relive it again? Wow. And I wonder how her neighbors will just love having these people living next door to them? First it’ll be only the parents and a few same kids, then all the Ohana will show up and there’ll be 20 plus people in the house and how many more cars parked out there on the street? Amazing.
scooters, this landlord was vandalized by low-income renters, NOT homeless thugs. Makes a difference, you know.
scooters, that’s why landlords need to make regular unannounced(illegal) visits, right around dinner time. Unannounced visits, nosey neighbors(your friends) with cameras and regular “drive-bys” might help. Make sure the unit is fully insured.
When ever a cop responses at a rental unit, they never go alone. Scary to be a cop.
And, it’s scary to be a Landlord when you knock on the door for the late rent. I bought my first three rentals in 1959 and kept buying until I had 34 single family homes. I finally wised up and found the low rent ones were taking 90% of my time. I did exchanges (1031’s) and upgraded to higher quality homes (and tenants) one sleeps better at night. And makes retiring in Hawaii possible.
RetiredWorking says: Too much of nothing.
serious, I commend you on being a good landlord. and HAJAA1 says nothing that makes sense.
So Roy is displacing a tenant to make room for a homeless individual. Contracting the housing pool seems like a sure way to promote homelessness for the working poor.
As an owner of several rental units, I am appalled these owners are unaware or do not care that the Feds can seize their properties without compensation if you knowingly allow drug activity. It doesn’t matter how much insurance the County will provide or “extra” rent from the Housing First program, losing your property without compensation is not worth the risk. AND you still have to pay off your mortgage on the seized property or claim bankruptcy. Ultimately, if this occurs, most property owners will be in financial ruin at this point. To compound the issue, the Housing First program removes units from the already tight rental pool. This means the working family may now become homeless in order to house a drug-addicted individual who has virtually no chance of a self-sufficient existence.
The homeless are being placed in condos in Waikiki !!! One of my friends says there’s a mental,drunken woman in her building that keeps causing a ruckus, but the Resident Mgr. can’t do anything about it because the police in Waikiki protect the homeless!!! ACLU
betta late than neva… are you kidding? I would rather rent to Section 8 than to homeless. At least, you know that a Section 8 renter has done their work to qualify rather than sitting on their butts (homeless) and riding bike’s all day!