State officials have selected Catholic Charities Hawaii to manage the social services at Oahu’s new Family Assessment Center, scheduled to open in Kakaako on Sept. 28 to quickly move homeless families into long-term housing.
The $1.2 million allocated to Catholic Charities over 22 months will go toward helping the homeless find housing and other services. The goal is to aid 80 percent of the estimated 240 people per year who seek help at the center, which is mauka of Kakaako Waterfront Park, in getting long-term housing, and to place the remainder in other types of housing. The contract is expected to be finalized shortly.
“We’ve been known to give a hand up and not a handout,” said Jerry Rauckhorst, president and CEO of Catholic Charities. “The idea is to have a very short-term place for a family to stay with the understanding that our staff will work with these families that are homeless to help make a decision around permanency.”
Rona Fukumoto, division administrator for housing assistance and referral programs at Catholic Charities, said when families first arrive at the 5,000-square-foot former maintenance building, they will be assigned a cubicle and assessed by a case manager to address basic housing needs, such as identification and other important documents.
There will be at least two on-site case managers at all times. Identification will not be required upon arrival and families will be able to stay for up to 90 days. The center will accept families from across Oahu but is expecting many from Kakaako and urban Honolulu, Fukumoto said.
She said after the initial assessment, services will be tailored to each family. Staff will coordinate with the state Department of Education to ensure children are attending school and finishing their homework, and they hope to partner with volunteers or community groups to offer some fun workshops for the kids.
General rules include no pets except for service animals and no cooking. There will be no curfew and no on-site meal service, but Fukumoto said staff will help families find local food pantries and other meal options. The center will also be equipped with separate men’s and women’s showers and toilets, as well as facilities for people with disabilities. Fukumoto said staff will tap into existing resources and connections with landlords and work with other service providers to help families navigate the housing process.
“It’s a mindset. When you create some place where you’re going to feed the families and bring gifts, it becomes a place that they want to stay,” Fukumoto said. “We want to get them out as soon as possible. It’s really leveraging all of the resources to get all of these families housed.”
Scott Morishige, the state’s homeless coordinator, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that Catholic Charities was chosen by the state Department of Human Services based on its extensive experience in housing programs.
“They (the state) were really looking at providers with experience in the community,” Morishige said. “Because of the wide range of housing services Catholic Charities administers, that was one of the critical reasons they were selected.”
Touted as a new approach to quickly transition homeless families to long-term housing, the project is on Hawaii Community Development Authority land and in the middle of the Kakaako homeless encampment. Gov. David Ige had announced in November that he hoped the structure would open by February, but a broken sewer pump delayed the project. A new pump was installed in August.
Morishige said the budget for renovations is close to the projected $750,000 and that the structure can accommodate a maximum of 50 people at a time.
Catholic Charities offers housing placement and supportive services to nearly 600 families and veterans each year. The organization also operates Maili Land Transitional Housing, a 44-unit, short-term facility that provides homeless families with a place to stay, along with social services and other life skills counseling.
