John Kidder lives in a 100-square-foot room in Chinatown.

The neat little room has a twin bed, a TV set, a bare-bulb overhead light and a small sink. The bathroom is down the hall.

Living in the confined space would be difficult for most people, but not for Kidder, who has been homeless for 23 years.

"Living like this, in my own place with a key to my own door, that is huge," said Kidder, 44. "I can say when I open up and close that door. Now I have to learn to live this way."

Kidder was considered chronically homeless with serious mental and substance abuse problems. Thanks to a federally financed supportive housing program that provides him a caseworker to make sure he gets medical treatment and that the rent is paid on time, Kidder can now see a future for himself.

"A lot of my life I just felt pretty crazy," Kidder said. He meets regularly with a therapist who "is really good. He helps me put things into perspective. Helps me look at things in my life I just never looked at. Things I put away that were bothering me."

There are an estimated 6,000 homeless people in Hawai'i on any given day, with about 20 percent of them, or 1,200, considered chronically homeless. Supportive housing has become a priority for homeless providers in Hawai'i to help some of the most difficult and most visible homeless cases move off the streets, but Hawai'i's tight and expensive home market makes finding housing for the homeless hard.

Providing and developing housing is the focus of this year's Homeless Awareness Week, which starts today and includes a march around the island, a candlelight vigil and a forum on the state's plan to end homelessness in Hawai'i.

Sponsored by Partners in Care, a coalition of about 60 service providers and government organizations, the week's activities are intended to educate the community about the realities of homelessness and to advocate for the people who struggle daily with the housing crisis.

Lynn Maunakea, the executive director of the Institute for Human Services, said supportive housing has proven effective in helping people such as Kidder, both locally and nationally.

"In 2001, I learned about supportive housing at a conference on the Mainland," said Maunakea, who will be leaving IHS next month for a job with Kamehameha Schools. "How even the chronically homeless can, through the 'housing first' model, be placed into housing and it really does work. This is how we are really going to get people off the street — permanent supportive housing. This is the emphasis now."

A PLACE TO START

Dennis Culhane of the University of Pennsylvania studied thousands of homeless people in New York City and Philadelphia over five years. His report said the chronically homeless use about half of all resources targeted for the homeless and could be served more appropriately and cost-effectively in permanent, mainstream housing accompanied by support services.

Getting those chronically homeless into supportive housing would then free money for other groups of homeless people such as families, the elderly and the unemployed forced to live on the streets.

Kidder lives in a four-story building on Smith Street owned by R. Keola Gerell. During World War II, the building was a dance hall where women, called taxi dancers, would charge soldiers 10 cents a dance.

Gerell has renovated the building into 40 rooms that are "safe, clean and comfortable." After having problems renting rooms to people who turned out to be drug dealers and prostitutes, Gerell discovered the benefits of the supportive housing program. Now, about 80 percent of his tenants are in supportive housing programs and the criminal element has been removed.

"We know they need to get on their feet," Gerell said. "They have been homeless or staying in a shelter with nothing but their clothes and a rolling suitcase to their name. They need a start."

Laura E. Thielen, executive director of the Affordable Housing and Homeless Alliance, said about 400 formerly homeless people now have homes through supportive housing programs. But there is a long way to go, she said.

"We definitely need more housing," Thielen said. "More importantly, we need the landlords to understand the program. They hear Section 8, they hear homeless and kind of back off."

She said landlords can call the case manager if help is needed with a client and once they understand what the program is, "those landlords stick with us for years."

HOUSING SHORTAGE

The underlying problem is the lack of affordable housing in the state, especially for the poorest people — those making less than 30 percent of the median income.

Gov. Linda Lingle has said the state lacks 30,000 affordable homes, of which 17,000 need to be rental units. She has asked private developers to help the state make up the deficit.

Thielen said the state's Rental Housing Trust Fund — which sets aside conveyance tax money from real estate transactions to build rental housing — is the primary source for increasing the inventory of affordable rentals. Currently, the fund has more than $15 million and it could grow to as much as $50 million by the end of fiscal year 2006.

Sen. Ron Menor, D-17th (Mililani, Waipi'o), said the Omnibus Affordable Housing Bill, passed by the Legislature last session and signed by the governor, will help provide housing in several ways. He said the law has increased the amount of money going into the rental trust fund, providing $4.3 million over the next two years for homeless shelters and services, as well as money for repair and renovation of public housing projects. The law also will reorganize the Housing and Community Development Corp. of Hawai'i into two agencies.

Menor, chairman of the Senate Commerce, Consumer Protection and Housing Committee and co-chairman of the joint Affordable Housing and Homeless Task Force, said reorganization of the HCDCH will allow one agency to focus on the management of public housing and the other on the financing of affordable housing projects in the future, including using the rental trust funds.

But more should be done, he said.

"The Legislature needs to allocate an even larger percentage of the conveyance tax monies to the Rental Housing Trust Fund as well as other funds established to build affordable rental units. Our affordable housing issue has reached crisis proportion," he said.

"The state clearly has an obligation to address the homeless problem because the reality is the private housing market is just not geared to responding to the needs of the homeless. It is geared to residents that can afford to purchase or rent housing. If the problem becomes worse, society will be hurt."

Reach James Gonser at jgonser@honoluluadvertiser.com.