I would invite the members of the Downtown Neighborhood Board to hang out with me on South King Street across from Kuhio Elementary, KCAA Pre-School, numerous three-story walk-up apartments, a couple restaurants, surf shops, mom-and-pop quickie marts and florists. Now, you might have to watch out for a whizzing bike, an inattentive driver, a few lost tourists or crumbling infrastructure, but the last thing you need to worry about is trouble from the 60 or so adults recovering from serious and persistent mental illness and chronic homelessness and living unobtrusively and relatively quietly at Weinberg Hale (operated by Housing Solutions, Inc., a nonprofit homeless housing provider). Most people don't even know it's there.

It's sad that the false stereotype of the dangerous, homeless, mentally ill person persists. The delay in approval of the city's planned affordable housing complex suffers as a result and so does our community.

A housing complex with seriously mentally ill adults actually attracts far fewer problems and creates far less congestion than other types of development. The environmental footprint of the seriously mentally ill individual is quite small; they typically don't drive and they live within modest means (SSI and food stamps) in a modest studio.

The city's proposed project is also stated to be a permanent supportive housing (PSH) complex, not transitional housing. Mounting research shows this approach to be low-cost over the long run and effective in reducing chronic homelessness. The city should be applauded for embracing this approach.

Two years ago, housing and environmental advocates fought to sequester 0.5 percent of the property tax bill to build affordable housing, which the voting public approved. This project is the first child of this fund. Coverage of the project should be celebrated by the public and the neighborhood, which compassionately supported this generous allocation of existing funding.

The issue of individuals living on the streets in the downtown area - between Nimitz Highway and Vineyard Avenue - continues to be problematic and most human service providers remain sympathetic to the complaints of business owners and downtown residents. Building modern housing approaches like permanent supportive housing for people with the devastating disease of schizophrenia strikes a balance between meeting the needs of clients and the community's desire to create a more attractive downtown district.

The street people who continue to be the problem in the downtown area are the chronic alcoholics, substance abusers and drug dealers typically unwilling to seek help. Unfortunately, this project cannot solve much of this problem - which takes more drug treatment options and other more integrated approaches that pass the bar of our Constitution.

But remember, spiffing up the area too much more would only bring the rents higher and place more of a burden on many of the low-income residents living in the Chinatown area.

So I hope the Downtown Neighborhood Board will take me up on this challenge. Talk to the school, the preschool and the various businesses and hang out a little at the end of South King Street. Talk to members of the Moilili Neighborhood Board. I am sure that they will tell you they have no problems with Weinberg Hale or its residents. Then join us as part of the solution.