Reducing the highest per capita homeless rate in the nation will require a sturdy pipeline that ultimately moves the unsheltered into affordable housing.

State lawmakers have two weeks of opportunity left to shore up that pipeline this session — they include funding homeless initiatives, properly funding repair of public housing units and pushing forward a measure that aims to increase affordable rental units by 22,500 in the next decade.

Several of Gov. David Ige’s homeless and affordable housing initiatives remain alive at the Legislature, albeit a few with drastically slashed funding. We urge lawmakers — two of whom sit on the Governor’s Leadership Team on Homelessness — to robustly fund programs such as Housing First, which helps the long-term homeless, and Rapid Re-housing, which helps people with up to three months of rental subsidies.

Ige had requested $2 million for outreach services, $3 million for Housing First and $2 million for rental subsidies. Those measures were stripped in the House version of the budget, but restored in the latest Senate version.

They also are included in separate bills, which mean they would become year-to-year appropriations rather than have long-term placement in the state budget.

Ultimately, those items should stay in the state budget to address the ongoing needs of the state’s homeless population. There is no indication that the state’s homeless crisis will be ending anytime soon, so it will require consistent funding that would ideally taper off as more homeless are moved off the streets and affordable housing increases.

Ige’s request for $900,000 yearly to operate a yet-unopened family shelter in a renovated Kakaako maintenance shed received no funding in a House bill, while a Senate version allots only half the requested amount. If $450,000 would be sufficient to operate the facility, fine; if not, continuing to build the facility could end up a waste of taxpayer dollars.

Both House Finance Chairwoman Sylvia Luke and Senate Ways and Means Chairwoman Jill Tokuda sit on the Governor’s Leadership Team on Homelessness. They must now exercise leadership to decisively steer a course toward erasing Hawaii’s homeless numbers, now hovering at 7,000-plus.

On the affordable housing end of the pipeline, it’s encouraging to see appropriations to the Hawaii Housing Finance and Development Corp. — $50 million that would go toward construction and development of an estimated 400 affordable housing units.

But it’s dismaying that the repair and maintenance of public housing units, with so many of them out of commission, is not seen as a priority across the board. Ige had requested $31 million, the House slashed that figure to $4 million and the latest Senate proposal earmarks $29.1 million. Public housing plays an important part in the overall effort to ease homelessness.

A recent report by the Hawaii Appleseed Center for Law and Economic Justice found about 18 percent of Hawaii residents are living in poverty, underscoring the need for housing relief. That heightened poverty level, the sixth-highest rate in the country, has fed the homeless crisis.

Further, about 1 in 3 households earning between 51 percent and 80 percent of the county area median income, spend over half of their income on housing, the report said. Another 37 percent of this income bracket is spending nearly one-third of their income on housing.

Those figures should not just concern lawmakers, but call them to action. To that end, passage of a bill to expand the low-income renters tax credit is crucial.

Tokuda also is pushing a bill with a goal to build 22,500 rental housing units within 10 years. Senate Bill 2561 calls for a temporary special action team that would recommend actions to increase supply of rental housing, particularly rentals affordable to low- and moderate-income families. Establishment of such a team would be a positive step, so long as clear, achievable benchmarks are set to ensure the 22,500 units are built.

It’s clear that a multi-faceted, consistent approach to tackle the homeless/housing crisis is needed. Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell has suggested hiring a consultant, Lloyd Pendleton, the homeless czar who helped reduce homelessness in Salt Lake City, to spearhead efforts to do the same here.

There is some merit to having someone with proven expertise bring all stakeholders together to produce a long-term action plan to reduce the state’s homeless population.

But again, taxpayers will demand to see firm strategies and measurable goals — plus a collective political will to ultimately reduce encampments in our communities.