When the governor signed the a bill that gave $50 million to fight homelessness, one expected local homeless advocates to herald the occasion like Christmas in springtime.

Most have. But a few are also grumbling, and it's not just a matter of sour grapes.

They're dismayed because this year with a much larger slice of the budget pie available, an unexpected factor entered the funding process: good old-fashioned pork-barrel politics.

In the past, established nonprofits that battle homelessness simply responded to a "request for proposals" from the Housing and Community Development Corp. This assured a fair and rational path that rewarded proposals based on merit.

This year came with the twist: $15 million was given out as grants-in-aid — direct bequests from the Legislature, whose members are far from experts on homelessness.

What legislators do know are their constituents, which can lead to doling out money based on influence and connections.

The issue arises because the biggest grant-in-aid recipient was the Hawaii Coalition of Christian Churches, which received $5 million to develop a housing project.

It's a worthy group and no doubt a worthy project. But it also had a connection to Rep. Michael Kahikina, co-chair of the Housing Committee.

Kahikina helped launch the church coalition two years ago, but has no ongoing formal role. Kahikina did say he attends many of their meetings and that he showed the group how to apply for the available grant-in-aid monies.

Kahikina said he didn't think it necessary to recuse himself or disclose his help to any of his colleagues. But perhaps he should have in order to ward off any appearance of favoritism.

What's needed is a quick return to the fair and rational model for funding, where requests for proposals are evaluated by the experts at HCDCH, and then distributed fairly to experienced programs with track records, and new programs with promise.

That would be better than throwing the homeless into the pork barrel.