Kokua for mental health services

Being a good neighbor can pay off. Mental Health Kokua is reaping some community goodwill from its years of running the 25-bed Safe Haven shelter for years, without problems.

The Downtown Neighborhood Board has not yet voted to support the nonprofit’s effort to relocate at the end of its lease of the Edwin Thomas Building on South Beretania Street. But they’ve won over the Chinatown Business and Community Association. Its outspoken president, Chu Lan Shubert-Kwock, is also a neighborhood board member, and she said support is lining up.

The outcome of the Nov. 7 meeting will be telling. Mental Health Kokua doesn’t need the board’s backing in its application for a federal grant to renovate a new location. But it wouldn’t hurt.

Studying up on crime at schools

Researchers weren’t surprised to see that juvenile crime declined slightly during the 2009-2010 Furlough Fridays budget crisis, when Hawaii’s public schools were limited to four-day weeks.

Earlier studies have shown that juvenile arrests for assault tend to fall when school is not in session; physical fights are more common when kids are together. However, the drop in drug-related arrests was new, according to one of the University of Hawaii economists who wrote the analysis.

Overall, the numbers were small: There were 20 fewer assault arrests and 14 fewer drug-related arrests over the course of the abbreviated school year, in a system with about 185,000 students. Still, the analysis is thought-provoking. By highlighting the arrests, it also brings to mind the victims. For some students, and teachers too, school is not the safe haven it should be.