Homeless shelters struggle with loss of federal funding

HONOLULU (AP) — David Willett lived in a tent and struggled with drug addiction before coming to Gregory House, a Honolulu shelter that has provided temporary housing for people with HIV and AIDS for more than a decade.

Shelter managers in Hawaii are scrambling to figure out how to keep a roof over the heads of hundreds of homeless people, and similar cuts are being made across the nation this month as the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development shifts its grant money to programs that focus on permanent housing.

After hearing the news, Gregory House residents held hands in the kitchen — its walls decorated with the words live, ''believe and laugh — and shared stories about how living in the shelter helped them battle drug addictions and disease.

The transitional shelters and programs — many operating for more than a decade — applied for grants and were scored on factors including the community's success at reducing homelessness.

Each local area ranked their programs in order of priority when submitting the applications to HUD, and programs at the bottom of the list faced stiff competition nationwide.

Honolulu County, which banned sitting and lying down in Waikiki and other places in 2014, saw overall funding from HUD slashed by more than $525,000 this year, impacting programs that house about 465 people.

When prioritizing its grant applications, the city put transitional housing programs at the bottom of the list, said Bill McCarthy, executive director of Catholic Charities of Baltimore.