A pilot program offering safe spaces for Hawai‘i's homeless youth is now permanent.
Gov. Josh Green this week signed House Bill 613, now Act 297, into law.
The legislation establishes a Safe Spaces for Youth program within the Office of Youth Services. The program provides safe spaces in each county for youth and young adults who are experiencing, or at the risk of, homelessness.
Lawmakers also appropriated $871,016 in the 2025-26 fiscal year and $1.84 million in the next for the permanent program.
"These safe spaces will provide 24/7 access to lodging, meals, showers, medical and behavioral health services, as well as educational and employment support," a July 7 announcement from the Governor's Office noted. "Through the joint efforts of state and county departments, those in need of further support shall be connected to nonprofit institutions with the expertise to offer long-term support and shelter."
Reports for the program will be submitted to the state Legislature.
The state announced last July that the Safe Spaces for Youth pilot project had launched on O‘ahu and Hawai‘i Island. As part of the pilot, Hawai‘i would launch the national Safe Place program, the state said at that time.
Safe Place is a national youth outreach and prevention program for people typically under the age of 18, "in need of immediate help and safety." It was created in 1983 by the YMCA teen shelter in Louisville, Kentucky.
During a bill-signing ceremony Monday, state Rep. Lisa Marten, chair of the House Committee on Human Services and Homelessness said that homeless youth are "vulnerable to predators on the street who seek to exploit them."
"They're at high risk for mental health problems, including substance abuse, and there's barriers to their path for education and employment if they are without a house," she continued. "This bill makes [the program] permanent and provides funding to maintain the pilot services on O‘ahu and the Big Island, and initiate an expansion to one day provide short-term and long-term safe and appropriate housing statewide."
Youth in need can walk into a Safe Place site or text for help with response available 24 hours a day, Marten noted.
"Once there, they're provided with family-strengthening services to enable family reunification or transitional living services for youth who cannot be safely reunited with their families," she said. "They receive behavioral health services, support to complete their eduction, job training — the help that all young people need and that these young people are no longer getting from their own families so that they can become as productive and self-sufficient and be thriving members of our communities."
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Stephanie Salmons can be reached at stephanie@alohastatedaily.com.
