Hawaii County consultants recommend making homelessness fund permanent, standardize metrics and build capacity

Consultants from SAS Services and Hawaii County housing staff presented the year‑2 impact report for the Homelessness and Housing Fund (HHF) and urged the County Council committee to adopt changes including standardized outcomes, multiyear awards and consideration of making the fund permanent beyond 2027.

The report covers services delivered from Jan. 1, 2024, through Jan. 31, 2025. “The year 2 impact report shows that homelessness and housing fund grantees provided 3,894 services to Hawaii County households during the year 01/01/2024 through 01/31/2025,” said Michelle Hirayishi, program oversight manager, Office of Housing and Community Development. Hirayishi also noted that of households enrolled in longer support services, 58 percent showed an improved housing status from program entry to exit during that year.

Why it matters: County leaders and consultants said the $10,000,000‑a‑year HHF provides flexible local funding that can fill gaps not covered by federal or state sources, but that it is only one small piece of what proponents say would be a much larger funding need to address homelessness in Hawaii County.

SAS Services CEO Sharon Sims summarized the team’s outreach and recommendations. “There’s a critical need to continue this fund beyond 2027 as part of a more coordinated county response,” Sims said, outlining short‑term priorities to expand housing strategies and increase medical and behavioral‑health access tied to housing. Consultant Ashley Patek said the evaluation engaged more than 1,000 community voices and conducted a countywide survey of roughly 830 respondents, interviews and convenings across Hilo and Kona to inform findings.

Key recommendations SAS presented include: - Clarify the HHF’s role and align it with a countywide homelessness strategy rather than a broad list of disparate priorities. - Standardize outcomes and reporting templates so grantee performance can be measured at the fund level, not only project by project. - Pursue multiyear agreements and phased funding tied to milestones so effective programs are not lost between single‑year grant cycles. - Invest in internal county capacity for grant and contract management, and consider hiring external help where needed. - If the county extends the fund beyond 2027, create an office of homelessness (or similar entity) to coordinate federal, state, county and philanthropic resources, improve data collection (including inflow tracking) and perform community‑level needs assessments.

During the committee discussion, council members pressed for specifics and operational detail. Councilmember Kirkowitz said he was not yet sold on creating a separate office but asked department leadership to weigh in on how the recommendations would be operationalized. Kealani Costa, housing administrator, said the report provides “a good start” and that the Office of Housing is already directing some HHF dollars into prioritized service “buckets” to reduce duplication and ensure critical services such as emergency shelter remain funded.

Costa described other changes the office has begun: “We are directing funds into different buckets so that we can issue RFPs based on the services that we know are critical, and then we still have general grant making,” she said, adding that multiyear contracting would allow the office to hire and retain staff and bring stability to program management.

Committee members and consultants emphasized data gaps when measuring impact. SAS and housing staff repeatedly described limits in the available data for inflow (people becoming newly homeless), and said existing reports primarily capture households served by HHF grantees rather than a comprehensive picture of homelessness countywide. Consultants recommended a shared data system and standardized reporting to reduce missing or “unknown” entries in geographic or status fields.

Not all council members supported every recommendation. Several speakers cautioned that the $10 million annual fund is not sufficient to build large‑scale affordable housing, and urged the county to prioritize programs with the greatest return on investment — for example, interventions that prevent households from becoming homeless in the first place. Multiple council members pressed for continued support for smaller grassroots providers through capacity‑building grants.

Action taken: Committee members voted to close the file on Communication 4‑25 (the report and recommendations). The motion to close file was moved by Councilmember Inaba and seconded by Councilmember Kaguata. The chair called for the ayes; the committee recorded the motion as approved with seven members voting in favor and two members noted as not present (Councilmember Villegas excused; Councilmember Kimball absent). The committee’s action was procedural (closing the file) and does not itself adopt the consultants’ recommendations.

What’s next: Housing staff told the committee they are already implementing changes in the current RFP cycle (program year 4) to incorporate some recommendations, including clearer priorities and reporting templates, and that they plan to continue refining the program in years 4 and 5. Consultants’ written recommendations and SAS’s evaluation reports were transmitted to the committee as part of the communication.

The committee’s discussion and the consultants’ recommendations make clear that any long‑term changes—extending the fund, creating an office of homelessness, building a shared data system or scaling affordable housing—will require further decisions by the council, coordination with state and federal partners and additional funding beyond HHF’s current annual allocation.