Each year, the Homeless Point-in-Time (PIT) Count provides a snapshot of homelessness on Hawaiʻi Island, and also tells a story about our community. It tells us where we are making progress, where challenges remain, and where we must continue investing our time, resources, and collective effort.
The PIT Count is a federally mandated annual census designed to identify every individual sleeping on the streets, in vehicles, or in other areas not meant for human habitation. This year, volunteers and outreach workers canvassed across Maui, Kauaʻi, and Hawaiʻi Island, asking unsheltered residents, “Where did you sleep on the night of January 25, 2026?”
The 2026 PIT Count offers encouraging signs that progress is possible.
Even in the midst of rising costs of living and a severe shortage of affordable housing, Hawaiʻi Island saw a 3% overall reduction in homelessness and an 11% reduction in unsheltered homelessness compared to 2024. Perhaps even more encouraging, the number of families with children experiencing unsheltered homelessness has decreased by approximately 91% since 2018, with only five unsheltered family households identified during this year’s count.
At Neighborhood Place of Puna (NPP), this progress matters deeply because helping families and individuals build stable foundations is at the heart of our mission.
And while no single organization creates these outcomes alone, the data reinforces something we see every day: Prevention works. Family-centered support works. Community collaboration works. This is exactly the work Neighborhood Place of Puna has been committed to for years.
Progress Did Not Happen by Accident
As Neighborhood Place of Puna Executive Director Billi-Jo Pike shared during the recent Bridging the Gap press conference in Kailua-Kona on Wednesday, May 13, 2026:
“This progress did not happen by accident. It reflects years of coordinated outreach, shelter access, prevention efforts, healthcare partnerships, housing navigation, and community collaboration focused on moving people off the streets and helping them find stability.”
Across Hawaiʻi Island, organizations, service providers, healthcare systems, outreach teams, and community partners have come together with a shared goal: ensuring that our neighbors can access safe and stable housing.
Neighborhood Place of Puna is proud to play an important role in that effort.
Every day our team works alongside families, youth, and individuals facing housing instability or homelessness. We help people navigate challenges that can quickly become crises if left unsupported.
These all too real challenges can look like a missed rent payment, a family crisis, job loss, a medical emergency, or an unexpected life event.
When these challenges happen without support systems in place, families can quickly find themselves on the edge of homelessness.
That is why prevention matters.
The Most Powerful Homelessness Intervention Often Happens Before Homelessness Begins
Many people picture homelessness work beginning in shelters or outreach settings, but some of the most important work happens before a family ever reaches that point.
At Neighborhood Place of Puna, prevention can take many forms:
- Connecting families to resources through our Neighborhood Place Resource Centers in Keaʻau and Hilo
- Helping households navigate systems and access support
- Supporting housing stability efforts
- Providing essential support services to families in underserved communities through our Mobile Family Resource Center
- Providing emergency shelter through Hale ʻIki Family Assessment Center
- Conducting compassionate outreach through our Family and Youth Outreach team
- Helping families identify pathways toward long-term stability
Our work exists across the continuum — from prevention and early intervention to crisis response and long-term stabilization.
Our work looks like helping a family avoid homelessness entirely. Sometimes it looks like helping someone who is already experiencing homelessness find their way back to stability. Sometimes it means meeting people exactly where they are and walking alongside them on their journey.
Family Homelessness Remains a Community Priority
One of the strongest findings in this year’s PIT Count was the continued reduction in family homelessness.
Families experiencing homelessness often face unique challenges. Parents are trying to maintain work, keep children enrolled in school, manage healthcare needs, and preserve some sense of normalcy while navigating instability.
Children experiencing homelessness are at increased risk of educational disruption, health challenges, and long-term instability.
This is why NPP has always believed that strengthening families strengthens communities.
Billi-Jo emphasized this during the PIT announcement:
“Our community has made a commitment to invest resources and time to ensure that no child has to worry about where they will sleep at night and can focus on being kids.”
At NPP, that belief shapes our work every day. We know that when families have support, children have opportunities to thrive. And when children thrive, communities become stronger.
Progress Is Real, But Housing Challenges Remain
While this year’s PIT data showed positive movement, it also highlighted a challenge our staff and partners see every day.
Many individuals and families are connecting to services and moving into shelter, but finding permanent housing remains difficult. Emergency shelters were designed to be temporary places of safety and support. Yet many people are staying longer because affordable housing options remain limited.
The issue is not that service providers do not know how to help people achieve housing stability. The data tells a different story.
Across Hawaiʻi Island, 74% of people exiting homeless programs moved into permanent housing, and 93% remained housed for at least two years.
Housing-focused solutions work. But continued investment in affordable housing, supportive services, homelessness prevention efforts, rapid re-housing programs, and coordinated outreach remains essential.
Building on the Momentum
The Point-in-Time Count tells an important story. Progress is possible when communities invest in people, when families are prioritized, and when organizations work together.
And progress is possible when prevention becomes a community value rather than simply a program strategy.
Neighborhood Place of Puna remains committed to being part of that work every day.
Through prevention, outreach, youth support, family-centered services, housing stability efforts, and community partnerships, we will continue helping build pathways toward safer, healthier, and more stable futures.
The full report provides more detailed information on the Point-in-Time Count or Bridging the Gap. All reports are available on the Bridging the Gap below: