City accepts full allotment of 312 Emergency Housing Vouchers from HUD

News Release from City and County of Honolulu, May 27, 2021

HONOLULU — Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi announced today that the City and County of Honolulu will be accepting the full allotment of 312 vouchers from U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to address emergency housing needs on O‘ahu.

The Emergency Housing Voucher (EHV) program is available through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). Through EHV, HUD is providing housing choice vouchers to local Public Housing Authorities (PHAs) in order to assist individuals and families who are a) homeless, b) at risk of homelessness, c) fleeing, or attempting to flee, domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, stalking, or human trafficking, or d) recently homeless and for whom providing rental assistance will prevent the family’s homelessness or having a high risk of housing instability. 

“The EHV program will bring much-needed emergency housing options and services for those who are most vulnerable or at risk of homelessness,” said Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi. “We are grateful to HUD and we are committed to making this very worthwhile program work with our overall efforts to address homelessness.”

The City’s Community Assistance Division under the Department of Community Services will be administering the emergency housing vouchers program. According to HUD’s local office in Honolulu, over 700 emergency housing vouchers have been allotted statewide thus far as follows: City and County of Honolulu: 312, County of Hawaii: 110, County of Maui: 76, Kauai County Housing Agency: 28, and Hawaii Public Housing Authority: 182. 

For more information contact: Joy Barua, Joy.Barua@honolulu.gov

SA: Honolulu gets vouchers for emergency housing

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FLASHBACK: Bumbling Hawaii Officials Could Lose 100s of federal housing vouchers for homeless

KITV May 21, 2021: … The state and counties are up against a Monday deadline to accept or forgo federal emergency housing vouchers — about 500 for O'ahu alone — to help get more families off the streets.

"We really need to orchestrate this because it will require landlords. I cannot underscore that enough," said Connie Mitchell, executive director of the Institute for Human Services.

State leaders are grappling with how to administer the vouchers so they don't go to waste. Similar to low-income "Section 8" housing, manpower's a concern, so is changing emergency rules and finding enough landlords willing to participate.

"If we don't have landlords that are willing to work with us, no matter how many vouchers we get, we won't be able to house people," she added.

"We are currently reviewing HUD's new emergency voucher program and working with our partners to ensure that everyone has the capacity to comply with the federal requirements and to make sure that all due diligence is done to create a successful program that will effectively assist our homeless brothers and sisters," Hawaii Public Housing Authority Executive Director Hakim Ouansafi said in a statement….

read … Hawaii faces deadline to accept federal housing vouchers  

SA: Anton Krucky: The head of the city’s Office of Housing and Homelessness wants to change the paradigm for those on the streets