Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2001

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Commerce, Consumer Protection and Housing and Ways and Means, to which was referred S.B. No. 123 entitled:

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to appropriate funding for state homeless assistance programs.

Testimony in support of this measure was submitted by the Department of Community Services of the City and County of Honolulu, Hawaii State Commission on the Status of Women, Hawaii Catholic Conference, American Friends Service Committee, Partners In Care, Institute for Human Services, Catholic Charities Elderly Services, Affordable Housing and Homeless Alliance, Kalihi-Palama Health Center, Healthcare for the Homeless, and an individual. The Housing and Community Development Corporation of Hawaii testified in support of the intent of the measure.

Your Committees find that over the years, the State's homeless assistance programs have sustained substantial budget reductions and that the current budget for homeless programs is $1,300,000 less than it was in 1996. Your Committees further find that restoring and maintaining adequate funding for these programs is critical to preventing homelessness in the State, particularly at a time when many families are beginning to lose their welfare cash benefits and may be unable to meet their housing costs. This measure appropriates $2,800,000 over the fiscal biennium to fund emergency shelters and new shelters, and to subsidize transitional housing for families that have lost their welfare benefits.

Your Committees further find that that there are other measures pending in the Legislature that appropriate funds for homeless assistance, including the executive biennium budget bill, and that the matter of how best to fund homeless assistance merits further review and discussion. Therefore, your Committees have amended this measure by replacing each of the appropriation amounts in this measure with the sum of $1. Your Committees have also amended this measure to reflect preferred drafting style.

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Commerce, Consumer Protection and Housing and Ways and Means that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 123, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 123, S.D. 1, and be placed on the calendar for Third Reading.