WASHINGTON — Hawai'i will receive $6.2 million for homeless programs this year, about $422,000 less than the Housing and Urban Development provided last year, the agency announced yesterday.

Hawai'i's homeless programs are among 5,300 programs nationally that will share in nearly $1.4 billion this year, HUD officials said.

U.S. Sen. Daniel K. Inouye said he was pleased that the federal government can play a "vital role" in addressing Hawai'i's homeless situation.

"Unfortunately, homelessness has become a pervasive problem in Hawai'i, with hundreds of people living on beaches, even though they might have jobs," he said.

Of Hawai'i's $6.2 million in HUD money for local homeless programs, a total of $4.75 million is earmarked for the Honolulu Consortium, a coalition of about five dozen homeless service providers, community members and government entities.

Those providers range from the Kalihi-Palama Health Center's Health Care for the Homeless Project, which will receive about $1.5 million, to the Salvation Army, which will receive about $287,900.

The state also will receive about $662,500 for emergency shelter grants.

Betty Lou Larson, housing programs director for one coalition member agency — Catholic Charities Hawai'i — said the $133,607 share her organization will receive is used to fund an Employment and Youth Services program for the agency's Maililand Transitional Shelter in Wai'anae.

"We help in education, getting adults their high school diploma," Larson said. "And we have classes in learning job skills. We help them get jobs and maintain them and to learn to improve the skills they'll need to be a good worker.

"With this support of housing money, we also have the ability to have a youth counselor — someone who can work with the kids. Because the children also need to have support in order to move into the mainstream of the community."

Larson said Catholic Charities also will be in line to receive more than $55,000 of the additional $662,000 in HUD money earmarked for Emergency Shelter Grants. This money is extremely vital, she said.

"We use that to help with our operating costs, such as electricity," she said. "Our program fees include utilities — so those costs have just exploded, along with sewer, liability insurance, etc."

Larson said the Emergency Shelter Grant money is so important that without it Catholic Charities might have to look at closing.

WIDESPREAD USES

U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawai'i, said the money is used for everything from immediate shelter for military veterans and safe havens for abused children to group homes, transitional housing and long-term rental help.

"The ultimate goal in every case is to help them become self-sustaining so that homelessness is never the only possibility," he said.

Since most of the HUD money is awarded on a competitive basis annually, Hawai'i has seen its funding for homeless programs vary over the past five years. Last year's funding was $6.6 million, and 2005 funding was $6.3 million. In 2004, the state received $6.7 million, a $1.2 million jump from 2003.

"Whether it's a single man living with a mental illness or a family struggling to give their children a roof over their heads, this funding is quite literally saving lives," said HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson.

But U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawai'i, said more must be done to give people access to affordable housing.

"The Bush administration must commit additional resources to this pressing issue," he said.

Inouye said homelessness can be a "particularly heavy burden for individuals coping with HIV/AIDS."

He said the HUD money can help residents in "unfortunate circumstances to stable housing conditions."

The senator cited $358,400 from HUD's supportive housing programs to be given to Gregory House programs, which helps housing for people with HIV /AIDS.

MANY NEEDS UNMET

Nan Roman, president of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, pointed out that HUD said this year's funding would house about 150,000 individuals and families, but about 744,000 people were homeless in January 2005.

The HUD funding is inadequate to meet that need and doesn't address the root cause of people's homelessness — the lack of affordable housing and support for very poor people, Roman said.

Roman said it wasn't acceptable only to manage the problem of homelessness.

"In order to end homelessness, we must address the affordable housing crisis that affects men, women and children nationwide," he said.

Reach Dennis Camire at dcamire@gns.gannett.com and Will Hoover at whoover@honoluluadvertiser.com.