‘Kauhale are working’: Gov. Green responds to audit calling for more oversight of state housing initiative

News admin October 8, 2026 0 Comments

‘Kauhale are working’: Gov. Green responds to audit calling for more oversight of state housing initiative

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – A statewide audit of Hawaii’s efforts to address homelessness found that more oversight was needed for the rollout of the Kauhale Initiative.

The Office of the Auditor found that the Statewide Office on Homelessness and Housing Solution, or SOHHS, did not have the proper oversight in place to implement the initiative.

Gov. Josh Green launched the Kauhale Initiative in 2023 with the goal of quickly addressing the state’s homelessness crisis by creating communities of small homes for people at risk of ending up on the street.

Green issued emergency proclamations to speed up the creation of Kauhale developments.

The audit found that SOHHS lacked the proper protocols and expertise to adequately oversee the Kauhale Initiative, repeatedly allowing construction work and spending to happen before the necessary contracts or approvals were secured.

According to the recently released audit report, SOHHS authorized work to start on multiple developments before they completed negotiations with developers about public funding.

“We think the auditor needs to do his job, but I think we also need to know that the time the kauhale was being built, all these different kauhale, we were really trying to provide places for people to go as quickly as possible,” said Connie Mitchell, executive director of the Institute for Human Services, which operates the Alana Ola Pono kauhale in Iwilei.

The report also found weak oversight of HomeAid’s nearly $40 million worth of no-bid agreements and identified more than $13.7 million in payments that SOHHS had not adequately verified as reimbursable.

The audit report recommends the state strengthen its oversight of SOHHS by using an independent reviewer to potentially recover funds.

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Previous coverage: Auditor questions spending on Kauhale homeless villages

In response to the recent audit, Green says SOHHS has accepted all of the recommendations made by the state Office of the Auditor in their past audits of the initiative.

“Our kauhale are delivering results across Hawaii with nearly 900 beds so far, providing stable housing and human services to more than 2,900 of our formerly houseless neighbors, including medically fragile and older adults, families with children, people with behavioral health needs and survivors of domestic violence,” Green said.

Mitchell told Hawaii News Now that more than half of those who have gone through Alana Ola Pono have stayed off the streets. “This means that we actually exited people, 60, into permanent housing, and other four in other shelters and another person into treatment.”

SOHHS Coordinator Jun Yang has been working to recover any improper payments.

Yang also says that the audit report contains factual errors in its criticism of the state.

According to a response from the Office of the Governor, the audit report “mischaracterizes a significant portion of the $6.1 million in what it calls ‘unauthorized payments,’ including $2.5 million paid to HomeAid for the Alana Ola Pono project and $2.4 million in payments to HomeAid for a predevelopment agreement.”

Green also says that, in recent months, SOHHS has taken steps to recover public funds for expenses that were deemed improper, including more than $16,000 in unauthorized travel expenses, $300,000 in office and administrative expenses, and about $170,000 for work performed by HomeAid’s subcontractors and consultants that was not directly related to the Kauhale Initiative.

“We welcome accountability and will continue strengthening the program, but we will not lose sight of what matters most: kauhale are working, they are changing lives, and we are going to keep building on that progress because the people of our state deserve a real solution to this generational problem,” Green said.

HomeAid Hawai’i released the following statement in response to the state auditor’s report.

We believe the audit leaves taxpayers and policymakers with an incomplete picture of Kauhale’s impact. Through our participation in the Kauhale Initiative, we have helped the State pair approximately $39 million in State funds with over $4.3 million in direct philanthropic and industry contributions and $11.7 million in avoided costs. This has allowed the State to deliver more housing for each public dollar spent, changing how Hawaiʻi delivers deeply affordable housing.

The $13.7 million in questioned payments includes amounts already reconciled through contractual safeguards that protected both parties as operating procedures changed under three successive State Homeless Coordinators. HomeAid Hawaiʻi remains committed to transparent accounting, stronger oversight, and advancing a model that makes deeply affordable housing possible for people with the greatest need.