There is no such thing as “too much information” when it comes to guidance for programs to address Hawaii’s homelessness problems. However, there’s a danger that the planned 2025 homelessness census, scaled back from previous years, will put this state on a path illuminated by too little information.
Hawaii’s Continuums of Care (CoCs), a statewide network conducting the annual Point in Time Count, have announced that this year it will skip the census of the unsheltered homeless — the ones who are the most vulnerable and living on the streets. The Jan. 22 count will include only people who are staying in homeless shelters. The coalition comprises Oahu’s Partners in Care and the neighbor islands’ Bridging the Gap CoCs.
The counts are conducted as a requirement of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to gauge the number of people experiencing homelessness on a single specified night. That data allows the agency to allocate federal funding according to need and evaluate homelessness programs.
The data is entered in the HUD Homeless Management Information System (HMIS), and this year’s update is due Feb. 10.
At a minimum, the study is required only every two years, so the decision to forgo this year’s count outside of the shelter population still fits within the federal standards.
The question, however, is whether information will be missed that could be pivotal in mapping out the state’s crisis response. The most likely answer is “yes.”
If the idea is, in part, to evaluate the success of homelessness programs, this biennial count will sketch out a trend line that’s even less precise than a yearly one. It would be even more difficult now to discern which program changes might have had an effect on the population that’s vulnerable to homelessness.
Just as an example: The expansion of the kauhale concept of homeless accommodations — generally designed as tiny homes gathered into mini-villages with some shared facilities — has been a hallmark of the administration of Gov. Josh Green, starting when he served as lieutenant governor. Initially seen as experimental adaptations of Hawaiian community living, there are currently 17 statewide.
Is the approach working? It’s helpful to know how much of a draw kauhale have been for those who otherwise would be on the streets, certainly. But by not going out this year to interface with homeless on the streets and parks, the Point in Time Count is not getting feedback from the unsheltered, a needed perspective.
An informational briefing during the 2025 Legislature, which starts Wednesday, could examine the strategy for data-gathering on homelessness, including whether resuming an annual full-scale Point in Time Count would be advisable. It has been helpful up until this point, with the exception of the pandemic year of 2021. The studies of both the sheltered and unsheltered populations were made each year since the program began in 2012.
At a minimum, the continuum agencies should ensure that a robust effort is made to monitor fluctuations in the homeless population beyond the every-other-year protocol.
There is some effort made in that direction. Maude Cumming, former chair of Bridging the Gap, said the CoCs also collect similar information under different processes, and that all the information is available to the public in the HMIS database.
Anton Krucky, director of Honolulu’s Department of Community Services, said his agency is working on its own command center that will provide an ongoing homeless count, separate from the Point in Time Count.
That’s fine, but a key value of the full, annual count is
the needed spotlight it brings to the plight of homeless people, both sheltered and unsheltered. And now, it appears that the state will be working to counter homelessness with insufficient information. The faster that’s corrected, the better.
