The news from the front lines of the battle against homelessness frequently seems grim. The count of people living unsheltered is still rising, though at a much slower rate than in the past.

There is a good reason why Hawaii seems to be swimming upstream in its effort: When the homeless are moved off the streets, there are many individuals and families on the verge of replacing them — and many of them ultimately do.

It’s frustrating for a community when there’s no noticeable change in the number of encampments cropping up off streets and highways around the state.

But this is indisputable: Without addressing the immediate needs of those at risk of homelessness, Hawaii will never come to grips with the crisis.

The question that lawmakers have to answer before deciding how to spend taxpayer funds wisely: Has the state yet found the right formula for maximizing the impact of its efforts? Although there’s encouragement to be taken from the experience of the Aloha United Way, to cite one example, there’s undoubtedly room for improvement overall.

First, the good news: The AUW is finding its money going further, in terms of recipients, than it had expected. The agency received a $5 million grant from the state in a campaign focused on getting homeless people housed. The nonprofit charity agency set an original goal of helping 2,900 individuals who are homeless or at risk of falling into that state.

Instead, the count is up to 3,410 people who have received aid so far, and that’s with $1.9 million still unspent.

The project started with the goal of splitting the funds between housing those on the streets and those who may be perilously close to joining them there. Instead, the agency found housing those currently homeless to be harder than bringing financial reinforcement to those on the edge, so that only 27 percent of the funds have been going to them.

There are two takeaway lessons from this so far. One is that there are undoubtedly many more at-risk households than anyone realized — a deeper problem arising from high housing costs, some degree of underemployment and other factors. More must be done to help these people find services to keep them housed.

But the other is that other strategies must be tried to reach the homeless themselves; 27 percent is just not the result lawmakers were seeking for them.

Expanding awareness of the 211 telephone referral service, as homeless coordinator Scott Morishige said, would yield significant benefits. That will take direct outreach into the encampments and at every social-service site.

Clients need this kind of straightforward entry point to helping agencies, which in turn must offer guidance to the assist they need.

Referral services help the homeless as well as those at risk, of course, but those who have been living unsheltered for any length of time need intensive assistance — as soon as possible.

The organizers of this project and all homelessness initiatives must find ways to overcome the barriers that have stymied efforts to help. Many of the homeless may lack the steady income required to sustain themselves in housing once the AUW type of limited grants run out.

When the Legislature convenes in January, it should take a more clear-eyed look at strategies for helping the homeless than it did at the genesis of this program.

There are other options. For example, it might make more sense to invest funds in converting properties to long-term residential use. And drop-in centers, such as the one the city unveiled in Iwilei, have proven to be a good way to bring the homeless in touch with the help they need.

The one-time-grant assignment the state gave AUW has helped many. But this complex issue will take a complex array of tools to manage with any degree of success.