State Sen. Suzanne Chun Oakland tracks affordable housing unit projects in color-coded categories on a large easel in her office.

It’s a visual reminder of a study that found the state will need as many as 50,000 new rental units by 2016 to keep up with market demand.

"In that study, it shows how many units we need in every category, and what I’m focusing on is affordable housing," said Chun Oakland, chairwoman of the Senate Human Services Committee. "What I’m doing is just like a fundraiser. I’m making the goals for each of these categories of new housing units, and as I meet with new developers I start to fill in."

The 50,000 figure came from a 2011 Hawaii Housing Planning Study prepared for the Hawaii Housing Finance and Development Corporation.

Chun Oakland said the study found the state needs 13,000 new rental units by 2016 and at least 6,000 for-sale units for people earning under 80 percent of the area median income, which is $83,000.

And she described "a very acute shortage" in affordable housing for families of four earning between 30 percent and 60 percent of the average median income.

"The reason why I’m so focused on this is I’ve been working in the homeless area for many years and we find that about 40 percent of everyone that is homeless are actually working but they just can’t make enough to afford the available rental units," Chun Oakland said. "We need to actually increase the supply so that more people can actually afford to live here and not have to be homeless."

To address the state’s affordable housing and homeless issues, Chun Oakland hopes that the Legislature this session will allocate:

» $1.5 million toward a rental assistance program to help working homeless people or families obtain and maintain permanent housing;

» $1 million for the Department of Human Services’ homelessness prevention and rapid re-housing assistance program; and

» $30 million for the rental housing trust fund.

Chun Oakland said the rental housing trust fund was established in 1992 as a way to help developers create more of these affordable units.

"In the past few years we only had like $14 million going into the trust fund," she said. "In better years when there was not as much of an economic downturn, it was more (like) $28 million."

The Legislature is also working on passing a bill that would raise the percentage of the real estate conveyance tax going into the fund to 30 percent, which would bring in an additional estimated $20 million per year.

Most of Chun Oakland’s initiatives aimed at tackling homelessness are included in the "omnibus" Senate Bill 515. She also included in that bill undetermined funding for housing-first programs; the Homeless Programs Office of the Department of Human Services; substance abuse treatment and mental health support services for the homeless or people at risk of becoming homeless; and clean and sober housing support services offered by the Department of Health’s Alcohol and Drug Abuse Division.

Chun Oakland said most of her appropriations are also included in the governor’s budget proposal being worked on at the Legislature. She said the House introduced similar measures to hers that are contained in separate bills, and all of the big issues she’s tracking remain alive in both chambers.

House Housing Committee Chairwoman Rep. Rida Cabanilla (D, Ewa Beach-West Loch Estates) said her focus this session is more on the homeless issue and less on affordable housing.

"I’m not much concerned about affordable housing because you really don’t know what that is," she said. "And a lot of the affordable housing, so-called affordable housing, is not really ‘affordable.’"

Cabanilla said she has introduced creative solutions to the homeless issue — this year and in the past — that her colleagues haven’t been receptive to, such as creating an overnight parking lot for homeless living in their cars, establishing safe-haven campsites for the homeless, and assisting out-of-state homeless in returning to their family and friends.

Legislators last session supported Cabanilla’s return-to-home concept long enough for the bill to make it to conference committee, but lawmakers were unable to come to agreement on the issue.

"The current system is not working," Cabanilla said. The approach wherein they have to force everybody to go to the emergency shelter then transitional housing and then to permanent (housing) — that’s the only way we have now. There’s no other way. There’s no other solution. … (But) not everybody fits in the homeless shelter."

Cabanilla, along with the House Human Services Committee, amended Chun Oakland’s omnibus bill last week to include her return-to-home, safe haven and parking lot ideas.

The move sparked debate on the House floor, but Cabanilla pleaded her case to her colleagues.

"We don’t want them in our parking lot; we don’t want them returning to home; we don’t want to write a bill for safe havens; so what do we want?" she asked. "We end up with homeless people all over out state, all over our cities, all over our sidewalks and everywhere we look. So the point of saying that we don’t want all these initiatives is saying we want the status quo. Is that what we really want?"

Both chambers are also working on bills that would eliminate the asset limit criteria for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program.

"Taking it off will allow (people) to save enough so they can actually have enough resources to move into something more permanent," Chun Oakland said.