STAND. COM. REP. NO. 10

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    S.B. No. 91

       S.D. 1

 

 

 

Honorable Donna Mercado Kim

President of the Senate

Twenty-Seventh State Legislature

Regular Session of 2013

State of Hawaii

 

Madam:

 

     Your Committee on Human Services, to which was referred S.B. No. 91 entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO HOUSING,"

 

begs leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to appropriate funds for the state rent supplement program for homeless working individuals or families who are ready to rent permanent housing in order to obtain and maintain permanent housing.

 

     Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Hawaii Public Housing Authority, the Hawaii Appleseed Center for Law and Economic Justice, Catholic Charities Hawaii, The Institute for Human Services, PHOCUSED, the Partners in Development Foundation, the Community Alliance for Mental Health, and the Hawaii Substance Abuse Coalition.

 

Your Committee finds that working families and individuals have income to pay rent, but the income is often not sufficient to pay the full market rent.  For many homeless people, waiting for public housing seems to be the only option, since it would provide a very low cost rent.  However, waitlists for this housing are very long.  With help from a shallow subsidy, working families may be able to more quickly move out of homelessness.

 

     Your Committee has amended this measure by:

 

     (1)  Inserting an appropriation for an unspecified amount to the Department of Human Services to hire and train one program specialist to monitor the state rent supplement program and to contract out the implementation of the state rent supplement program statewide;

 

     (2)  Changing the expending agency to the Department of Human Services;

 

     (3)  Specifying that the monitoring of the program by the program specialist shall commence no later than January 1, 2014, to provide the Department of Human Services sufficient time to hire and train the program specialist; and

 

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

 

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Human Services that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 91, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 91, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Human Services,

 

 

 

____________________________

SUZANNE CHUN OAKLAND, Chair