After shelter: how long stays last, where people go and how many return

Counts & data · Published 2026-10-21

A grassy waterfront park in Kakaʻako with young palm trees, a walking path and the ocean beyond — Kakaʻako Waterfront Park, Honolulu. Photo: The Eloquent Peasant, CC0.

Counting people is only the first question. The second is whether the system moves them into homes, and whether they stay there. Hawaiʻi tracks this through federal "system performance measures" built from the records that shelters and housing programs keep on everyone they serve. The latest state report to the Legislature summarizes them, and they point to one bottleneck above all: a shortage of permanent housing to move into.

Where these numbers come from

Every program funded through Oʻahu's Continuum of Care records entries, exits and destinations in the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS). From those records, HUD requires each Continuum of Care to report standard measures every year: how long people stay in temporary programs, how many leave for permanent housing, and how many come back. The figures below come from the January 2026 report of the Statewide Office on Homelessness and Housing Solutions (SOHHS) and the Hawaiʻi Interagency Council on Homelessness.

1. Stays in temporary programs are getting longer

"Temporary programs" here means emergency shelters, safe havens and transitional housing. In 2024, the average length of stay was 354 days on Oʻahu and 140 days on the neighbor islands, and the state notes that stays on Oʻahu have been increasing.

A long stay is not automatically bad. Some households need months of support to stabilize. But the state report is candid that long stays in emergency shelter "are often indicative of a lack of permanent housing inventory": people stay because there is nowhere to go. That matters for the 2026 Point-in-Time count, which found many more people in shelters. If those beds fill with people who cannot move on, shelter capacity stops growing in practice even as it grows on paper.

2. Fewer exits to permanent housing on Oʻahu

The share of people leaving homeless programs for permanent housing has stayed relatively stable on the neighbor islands, averaging more than half of all exits. On Oʻahu, the state reports that the rate is lower. "Permanent housing" in these measures includes renting with or without a subsidy, permanent supportive housing and moving in with family on a permanent basis.

The state links lower exit rates to the same cause as longer stays: the lack of permanent housing, including types of housing suited to particular groups, such as people with serious health conditions or large families.

3. Returns to homelessness are below the national average

The third measure looks at people who left a program for permanent housing and checks whether they enrolled in a homeless program again within 24 months. In the 2024 reporting year, the return rate was 13.8% on Oʻahu and 14.6% on the neighbor islands, both below the national average of 17.4%.

The state adds a caution. A stable return rate suggests that a meaningful share of formerly homeless households struggle to keep housing even with long-term subsidies and services. Households in time-limited programs such as rapid rehousing may find it hard to pay market rent when the subsidy ends. With Honolulu's median gross rent above $2,000 a month (see rent burden in Honolulu), that risk is easy to understand.

Key system figures, 2024

Average stay in temporary programs: 354 days on Oʻahu, 140 on the neighbor islands.
Exits to permanent housing: above 50% on the neighbor islands, lower on Oʻahu.
Returns within 24 months: 13.8% on Oʻahu, 14.6% on the neighbor islands, 17.4% nationally.

The changing mix of beds

The Housing Inventory Count, taken alongside the Point-in-Time count, lists every bed dedicated to people experiencing homelessness. Since 2016, the state reports, the inventory of temporary housing (shelters, safe havens, transitional housing) has declined statewide, while the inventory of permanent housing (rapid rehousing, permanent supportive housing and other permanent housing) has grown. This followed federal guidance that prioritized permanent housing with federal homelessness funds, in line with the Housing First approach described in our piece on Housing First in Honolulu.

That direction is now being questioned in Washington. The state report notes that in November 2025 HUD announced it intended to reverse its guidance on funding permanent housing, and that its December 2025 funding notice proposed a 30% cap on permanent housing projects while encouraging transitional housing. As of December 30, 2025, the notice was enjoined pending litigation.

Program-level results

System averages blend very different programs. The same state report gives outcomes for two state initiatives:

Kauhale

Through November 30, 2025, there had been 888 exits from kauhale projects: 359 people (40%) left for permanent housing, 280 (32%) for other destinations such as hospitals, treatment programs or family, and 249 (28%) returned to homelessness. The average stay was 222 days. Kauhale are designed to be low-barrier, and the state expects some residents to leave before they are ready. Our kauhale explainer covers how the villages work.

ʻOhana Zones

Permanent housing programs funded through ʻOhana Zones reported about 298 exits, of which 196 (66%) were to other permanent housing. The city's HONU navigation program, the only ʻOhana Zones shelter program funded at the time, reported an average stay of 50 days and a positive exit rate of 63% over the previous year, counting moves into shelters, family reunification, boarding homes, medical facilities and permanent housing.

Housing First

The City and County of Honolulu's Housing First programs have been evaluated by University of Hawaiʻi researchers since 2015. A city-commissioned evaluation of the fourth phase reported a housing retention rate of 97%. Retention measures something different from the system return rate (staying in a program, not avoiding a return after leaving one), so the two should not be read as the same thing.

What these measures cannot tell us

People outside the system. Someone who never enters a shelter or program does not appear in HMIS measures at all.
Returns elsewhere. A person who leaves Oʻahu or loses housing without seeking help again is not counted as a return.
Quality of housing. An exit to "permanent housing" says nothing about crowding, cost or stability beyond the measured period.

Read together with the 2026 Point-in-Time count, the picture is consistent: Oʻahu has become better at bringing people indoors than at moving them on to homes of their own.

Sources

Statewide Office on Homelessness and Housing Solutions and Hawaiʻi Interagency Council on Homelessness, Report to the 2026 Legislature (PDF), sections I.B, I.C, II and III.
City and County of Honolulu, Department of Community Services, Housing First IV Evaluation Report 2022 (PDF).
Partners in Care, Homeless Management Information System.