HERE'S a report from the rapidly unraveling bottom strands of Hawaii's safety net. Hawaii's homeless, a group that has grown by more than 45 percent since 1992, according to the Rev. Frank Chong, executive director of the Waikiki Health Center, walks on the edge between survival and disaster every day. Programs to aid
the homeless threatenedThe private social service agencies that get state money to care for the homeless seem to have staunched the bleeding from years of cut budgets, but new problems threaten the entire program of helping our homeless.
Millie Tanabe, project director for the Kalihi-Palama Health Center's homeless project, says her three offices treat a total of 2,000 cases a year. These are the folks who are just about to fall, the homeless with HIV/AIDS, the homeless with serious mental illness or drug and alcohol problems.
In Waikiki, Chong reports an equal number of visits, but worries that the need is rising while the amount the centers can help remains constant. "We are working at capacity and have been for several years," he said.
Chong and Tanabe are talented enough administrators not to drop their work just because money from one source dries up. Both have found other programs, other ways of accomplishing their missions. Tanabe even reports they are trying to expand services with a small home for the homeless poor who have just gotten out of the hospital and need a shelter in which to recuperate.
"What do we need? Money, send money," Tanabe answers when asked to list her needs.
It isn't coming from the state.
Things at the Legislature have gotten worse for Chong, Tanabe and the thousands of poor people they help every year.
As Hawaii's economy continues to slow, the jobs are going: The fired, laid off, down-sized and dismissed with more skills are grabbing the lower paying jobs that once helped buffer the very poor.
"We are seeing more desperate people out there," Chong warns.
"There is a lot more self-destructive behavior, picking fights, hassling the cops. You see a lot more tension."
Kathryn Dyjak, with the Strength Coalition, which is lobbying for general assistance funds, says the latest budget coming from the Legislature would cut $31 million from the budget that helps the homeless poor.
The proposed budget would force mentally ill, sick or addicted individuals who are without any other social services to survive on state aid of $150 a month.
There are 7,000 people like that living in Hawaii this month. A quarter of the recipients are on the Big Island, according to Dyjak.
THAT'S not the only problem. Federally required changes are starting to cut off benefits to immigrants. As that happens, another part of the safety net goes.
"Kalihi-Palama has a large immigrant population. So if they lose their health benefits they won't be able to afford health care, so they will either come to the clinic or they won't come anywhere," Tanabe says.
"Their illness will progress and they will just get sicker until they go to the emergency room."
Chong, Tanabe and Dyjak are just three of the dozens of professionals who simply have run out of options. There just isn't anywhere else to go.
This is the bottom of the net. That is the reality the Legislature must address before this month ends. If the Legislature fails, the net is gone.