STAND. COM. REP. NO. 155

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2025

RE: H.B. No. 1131

H.D. 1

Honorable Nadine K. Nakamura

Speaker, House of Representatives

Thirty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2025

State of Hawaii

Madame:

Your Committees on Human Services & Homelessness and Health, to which was referred H.B. No. 1131 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO AN INTENSIVE MOBILE TEAM PILOT PROGRAM FOR HOUSELESS INDIVIDUALS SUFFERING FROM SERIOUS BRAIN DISORDERS,"

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to establish and appropriate funds for a pilot program in the Department of Health to provide intensive mobile treatment-type services to chronically houseless individuals suffering from serious brain disorders, including but not limited to schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder.

Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Health; Hawai‘i Primary Care Association; Hawai‘i Health & Harm Reduction Center; Hawaii Substance Abuse Coalition; Hawaii Medical Association; and two individuals.

Your Committees find that houseless individuals with serious brain disorders may resist services due to co-morbid medical conditions or a lack of trust in those seeking to assist them. It is therefore critical to provide outreach services for these individuals by building engagement, rapport, and trust using highly specialized skills and training. This measure provides intensive mobile treatment-type services to chronically houseless individuals suffering from serious brain disorders, including schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. These services are intended to decrease morbidity and mortality amongst these individuals, while also saving the community money through decreased hospitalizations, decreased law enforcement encounters, and decreased incarcerations.

Your Committees have amended this measure by:

(1) Clarifying that the pilot program shall manage at least forty participants, rather than cap the number of participants at forty;

(2) Changing the appropriation to an unspecified amount;

(3) Changing the effective date to July 1, 3000, to encourage further discussion; and

(4) Making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity, consistency, and style.

Your Committees respectfully request your Committee on Finance, should it deliberate on this measure, to consider an appropriation amount of $1,300,000.

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Human Services & Homelessness and Health that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 1131, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 1131, H.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Finance.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Human Services & Homelessness and Health,

____________________________ GREGG TAKAYAMA, Chair

____________________________ LISA MARTEN, Chair