The man who helped Utah decrease chronic homelessness by 72 percent in 10 years has come to Hawaii to help its homelessness problem.
LDS Church member Lloyd Pendleton is “in talks with Mayor Kirk Caldwell about a move to Oahu to help reduce the highest per capita homeless rate in the country,” says the Honolulu Star Advertiser.
Pendleton gave new ideas that Lambert Lum, Next Step’s director of shelter services, was happy to receive. “A fresh set of ideas is good. He’s given us lots of new ideas to expand on our existing practices. It’s awesome.”
Some of those ideas were for Next Step to partner with Goodwill industries, to use the LDS Bishop’s storehouse, and for Eagle Scout projects to collect toiletries, towels and sheets for newly arrived homeless clients, reports the Honolulu Star Advertiser.
Caldwell said, “He’s the kind of guy we need here in Honolulu.”
Pendleton wasn’t always a champion of homeless people. In a 2015 NPR report, he said he used to believe homeless people should get themselves out of their predicament. But in 2003, he went to a conference on homelessness in Chicago, and he went back to Utah to do a “Housing First” approach, where people are housed before they have to tackle their drug problems.
Part of Pendleton’s success in Utah was in getting all faiths to chip in, and he said a similar thing could work in Hawaii. “I see opportunities for the LDS to get more involved,” he said. No one church agency or person can end homelessness, he said to the Honolulu Star Advertiser.
“He spoke about really engaging the community, the faith-based community, in particular,” Scott Morishige, state homeless coordinator, said of the meeting Pendleton had with Governor Ige and Rachael Wong, director of the state Department of Human Services.
In Utah, the faith-based community has fed homeless people, and sometimes given them temporary places to stay. According to a Deseret News article from 2014, a Utah nonprofit organization called “Family Promise of Salt Lake” feeds, houses and nurtures homeless families through a network of churches. The churches have been LDS, Methodist, Jewish and more.
On the North Shore, Church members and other religious people can find opportunities to volunteer at justserve,org. Laie Hawaii YSA 3rd Ward is collecting donations of toiletries for the needy. There are service opportunities in Kaneohe on March 20th and April 17th with Project Hawaii. Visit helpthehomelesskeiki.org for more details.