Council approves allocation of funds for homeless providers

Allocation of nearly $10 million to 16 homeless service providers covering 22 projects was approved Wednesday by the County Council.

The projects target an array of initiatives from permanent supportive housing to substance abuse and mental health treatment to providing services to community members who need assistance in connecting to stable housing opportunities. Also funded are programs providing hygiene outreach, street medicine and family reunification for persons experiencing homelessness.

The funding comes from the Homelessness and Housing Fund created in 2022 through Ordinance 22-26, which appropriates 75% of tier two property tax revenues annually to address homelessness and housing on Hawaii Island. The funding is set to expire in 2027.

In the lone dissenting vote, Councilwoman Rebecca Villegas voiced concerns about throwing money at a problem with little results. She also questioned how Neighborhood Place of Puna was awarded a no bid contract to develop a data collection system while also receiving over $800,000 from this round of funding.

“We were able to get approval from the governor’s office to help us collect data on contracts awarded in May. There was a sense of urgency to get this up and running,” said Sharon Hirota from the Office of Housing and Community Development.

Hirota acknowledged there have been concerns from other awardees about the possibility of HIPA violations and other reporting requirements, which she said were being addressed with the providers.

Villegas said she has heard from grant recipients that they need to report data to Neighborhood Place of Puna, which has become a concern to them. However, the corporation counsel reassured that Neighborhood Place of Puna is not managing anyone else’s data.

“That is not the way it’s being communicated to grantees,” said Villegas. “I’ve been notified by a number of grantees that is what they are being asked for.”

Housing Administrator for Housing and Community Development Susan Kunz said the County Council was clear in having a data collection system in place to report the performance of the funds awarded when the ordinance was passed.

“The Neighborhood Place of Puna in creating this system has been offering assistance to those service providers having trouble entering the data in the system themselves,” said Kunz. “It is not a requirement to turn data into Neighborhood Place of Puna. There are strict firewalls in place.”

“The constituents in my district continually look at the millions of dollars being allocated to help those encountering homelessness, Villegas said. “We see that money constantly being allocated to organizations who have a history of not fulfilling authentic obligations to help solve the issues. We see people falling through the cracks. For the number of people we report who are houseless on this island, the amount of money we are spending is ridiculous. It does not add up.”

She said she couldn’t understand how an organization can get a contract to manage a data program and also be awardees for the grants that information is going into.

“That feels like double-dipping and an unwise alignment, especially when that organization has a history of calling the ACLU specifically on our county for outreaches that happened to help mitigate the issues happening,” she added. “There are too many red flags streaming.”

Villegas also noted one of the requirements for the grant awardees is to attend meetings three times a month under the direction of Paul Norman of The Neighborhood Place of Puna.

“I consistently see an inadequate, ineffectual and disproportionate allocation of resources, authority and perceived accountability by other grantees to certain organizations that tend to monopolize the millions of dollars that we are providing to help rectify an issue,” she said, adding she thought Norman was being given too much power.

Kunz countered that her department has been successfully administering federal grants for many years.

“We have a lot of track record in doing contracts and keeping service providers accountable to the work that is laid out in the scope of services. We are using the same protocols when administering the county’s program. We do fiscal monitoring of all of the expenditures and program monitoring.”

Kunz said she could only speak about county funds, and not about how federal, state or private funds are tracked by the service providers.