Hawaii County Council members questioned the effectiveness of a $33 million effort to address homelessness as they weighed additional spending for outreach and other programs, according to testimony reported by the Associated Press from Honolulu Civil Beat coverage.
The council’s latest vote advanced a request for another $6 million for outreach and homeless programs, passing 5-4 as members continued to discuss whether the county is seeing measurable changes. Council member Ashley Kierkiewicz, representing Puna, said during the discussion that she was trying to assess whether the tens of millions of dollars invested by the county had made a “dent” and whether the community was “better off.”
Kierkiewicz said the situation did not look improved on the ground, pointing to conditions in “downtown Pāhoa and downtown Hilo.” She said, “Because when I’m outside and I’m walking through communities of downtown Pāhoa and downtown Hilo, it doesn’t look like we’re better off,” and said she had to acknowledge what she was seeing. She and another Puna council member, Matt Kaneali‘i-Kleinfelder, voted against the most recent $6 million commitment for nonprofits serving the Big Island homeless population.
Kaneali‘i-Kleinfelder said his expectation was that results should have been evident after the county put up $30 million over three years toward homelessness and housing. He said, “my expectation is, when the county puts up $30 million in three years toward addressing homelessness and housing, that the results are evident. I don’t think that they are.”
Council members’ positions matter because county homeless-program money is distributed to local nonprofits from the Homelessness and Housing Fund, which is set to expire in 2027 unless the council votes to extend it. Council member Heather Kimball, who represents the Hāmākua Coast, voted in favor of continuing the grant funding last month but said she wants an audit to scrutinize both how county money was spent and how effective the effort has been.
Kimball said the audit would be designed to provide data rather than to be punitive, arguing that the results of spending could affect future council decisions. She said, “If the public views the program as unsuccessful, if it doesn’t look like on the ground any impacts have been made spending these tens of millions of tax dollars, it is going to be harder for the council politically to free up the program.” She also said constituents had not been complaining about the funding directly, but there was “this impression the situation is getting worse.” Kimball said the audit, “It is really just that we need the data to determine whether or not to continue this program.”
The county’s grant awards in the latest cycle included $6 million for nonprofits handling outreach to homeless people, short-term housing and shelter, long-term housing, and support programs. Separately, the county budgeted another $5.14 million for a package of five grants that would fund large shelters in East and West Hawaiʻi, “safe space” overnight sleeping cot programs in both regions, and a permanent supportive housing project in a county facility in Kona. That additional package also needed council approval, and it was unclear how the members would respond.
In earlier comments during the council’s December hearing on homelessness grants, Kierkiewicz described concerns about how some people behave in parks and questioned whether officials were helping those who needed help most. She said, “I don’t even know if we’re helping people who really need help,” and told officials from the county Office of Housing and Community Development she had watched park maintenance workers spend much of their time, describing that they said 80% of their work was “cleaning up other people’s mess.” Council member Rebecca Villegas also raised concerns that the same nonprofits appear to receive county grants each cycle, telling the council that they get “the lion’s share of funding continuing to go to them and their programs with very little impact.”
Officials and service providers tied the debate to program outcomes and the availability of shelter and housing. Brandee Menino, CEO of HOPE Services Hawaiʻi, told Civil Beat that some people are frustrated because homelessness does not appear to be improving, and she said “It’s getting worse, for sure.” Menino said she believes the county should continue the Homelessness and Housing Fund, citing figures from Bridging the Gap Hawaiʻi that her organization and other service agencies helped 552 people transition from homelessness to permanent housing on the Big Island in the last fiscal year. She said her data showed “74% of the people that we touch are going into housing,” while adding that “what the data also shows is more people are falling into homelessness.”
Menino said county data indicated 80% of homeless people would come indoors if housing or shelter were available, but she said “We just don’t have the housing that people can afford,” and that nearly half of those moving into housing rely on housing subsidies. She said, “You need the subsidies, you need the housing inventory,” and added, “That’s the bottleneck.”
The council also heard from Kēhaulani Costa, the community development administrator, who said nonprofits struggle when their funding is reduced or eliminated, describing how fewer grants can mean fewer services. Costa said, “we’ve seen emergency shelter beds reduced, we’re going to see outreach programs reduced because funding was not available,” and she told council members that changes in grant allocations have contributed to those impacts.
A consultant hired in 2024 evaluated the Homelessness and Housing Fund and said the report cited a lack of “truly affordable housing” on the Big Island, according to the coverage. The report said the fund should be considered part of a larger countywide strategy, and it proposed creating a new Office of Homelessness, according to the AP account. The report also recommended that the fund continue after 2027 as a “flexible funding mechanism to address the growing needs in the areas of homelessness and housing instability.”
Still, council members expressed uncertainty about extending the fund. Kierkiewicz said the process for the Homelessness and Housing Fund is at risk of ending, telling colleagues that it was “always temporary in nature.” Council member Dennis “Fresh” Onishi said he would support social service programs but that they should have a timeline for when county funding ends. Kaneali‘i-Kleinfelder also said he was concerned about spending money without results, citing California spending and saying there has to be an outcome from $30 million in taxpayer funds.