User:Nstorch/sandbox/Affordable Housing and Homeless Alliance

The Affordable Housing and Homeless Association (AHHA) is a charity that was founded in 1988. Doran J. Porter, the current CEO of the AHHA, was the principal founder of the organization. The AHHA is located in Kaneohe on Oʻahu where events are both organized and held. The organization works with public, private, and nonprofit sectors in order to build up the ability to have stronger programs to help the homeless. The main goal for the AHHA is to end homelessness completely in Hawaiʻi.

Mission and Values
The main mission of the Affordable Housing and Homeless Alliance is to “end homelessness in Hawaii by ensuring access to affordable, safe, appropriate, and decent housing”. They are committed to “opening doors to overcome homelessness”. The AHHA has an action strategy called their “Ten Year Plan” to allow their mission for ending homelessness in Hawaiʻi to be a possibility. Their action strategy is, in their words, a “plan, not a dream”, that consists of the goals of improving data collection/research, decreasing barriers to housing, ensuring access to affordable and safe housing, and preventing individuals from becoming homeless. Some milestones of the AHHA’s “Ten Year Plan” include the “Governor of the State of Hawaii convening a Housing Development Forum with an invitation to housing developers statewide to augment the construction of affordable rental housing” and providing a major “increase in media attention to the issue of homelessness and affordable housing”.

Work
The AHHA hosts events to boost awareness of the hurdles that they face and help encourage more people to participate in the solution for these challenges and obstacles. One event hosted by the AHHA during Homeless Awareness Week was called the “Save My Hale” gathering. This event was aimed at showing how hard it was for the homeless to live and find housing. At this event people experienced eating the food that homeless people generally eat; spaghetti, citrus chicken, and pork and beans. The AHHA “provides case management services to homeless people at eight different centers” to combat the issues of the “restriction of many homeless people of finding long-term housing due to their history of mental health and substance abuse problems”. The AHHA has given around 12,000 homeless men and women access to help for their mental health and substance abuse problems in the time frame of one year.

Video
This video shows a slideshow of some of the AHHA events in Oahu: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnM0MruTDgA

This video shows an interview with one of the AHHA staff members who talks about where are how the AHHA works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlhQGWwlp00