STAND. COM. REP. NO. 457

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2023

RE: H.B. No. 1366

H.D. 1

Honorable Scott K. Saiki

Speaker, House of Representatives

Thirty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2023

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Human Services and Health & Homelessness, to which was referred H.B. No. 1366 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO HOMELESSNESS,"

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to establish and appropriate funds for a three-year Return-to-Home Pilot Program to assist eligible homeless individuals with family reunification.

Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Hawai‘i Lodging & Tourism Association. Your Committees received comments on this measure from the Department of Human Services.

Your Committees find that homelessness continues to be one of the State's most significant and challenging social problems. Your Committees further find that many homeless individuals who are currently stranded in the State may be able to thrive and break the cycle of homelessness if they are repatriated to their families and loved ones in their home state.

Your Committees note that between 2014 and 2019, the Hawai‘i Lodging & Tourism Association operated a program similar to the one proposed by this measure. Over the five years that it operated, the program helped coordinate the return of seven hundred forty-four homeless individuals, with only sixteen individuals, or less than two percent of program participants, returning to Hawaii.

Your Committees have amended this measure by:

(1) Requiring the Department of Human Services to contract with eligible nonprofit organizations, for profit organizations, or foundations as part of a public-private partnership to administer the Pilot Program;

(2) Authorizing the Department of Human Services to enter into contracts as part of the public-private partnership without regard to the Hawaii Public Procurement Code and law governing purchases of health and human services;

(3) Requiring program participants, or their families, to pay half the cost of any transportation used to return the participant to their home state, unless the participant is indigent and lacks the financial resources;

(4) Requiring all funds provided to eligible nonprofit organizations, for profit organizations, or foundations be matched by these entities on a dollar-for-dollar basis;

(5) Changing the effective date to June 30, 3000, to encourage further discussion; and

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

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Human Services and Health & Homelessness that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 1366, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 1366, H.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Finance.

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

____________________________ DELLA AU BELATTI, Chair

____________________________ JOHN M. MIZUNO, Chair