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One of the most welcome stories that emerged from the Legislature this year was the funding for affordable housing and homelessness.

On Thursday, Gov. David Ige announced what he’ll do with the $12 million set aside for homelessness, unveiling a four-year plan for reducing unsheltered homelessness to “functional zero” that includes building 10,000 affordable housing units by 2020.

It represents the most substantial commitment yet in a growing effort to get in front of homelessness, which despite all previous actions, continues to expand. January’s point-in-time count revealed 7,921 individuals living on the streets statewide, a troubling increase of 4 percent over last year’s total of 7,620. Over the past five years, the population has swollen by a hefty 28 percent.

We appreciate the governor’s commitment to an issue he has classified as a statewide emergency since last fall. Likewise, the support of the 2016 Legislature, which put real money on the table. Clearly, this represents a foundation upon which additional efforts can and must be built.

And that’s exactly what actually solving this complex challenge will require, because at the same time, market forces are conspiring to make it more difficult than ever before.

Only a couple weeks ago, the release of June housing numbers showed that the median price for home sales on Honolulu hit $760,000 — a record high. A surprising 20 Honolulu homes were sold last month for at least $2 million.

State officials say roughly $112 million in all is needed to address affordable housing and homelessness issues and put that in the budget.

But spiraling costs will undercut the purchasing power of the $100 million identified for affordable housing, reducing the number of units the appropriation might have funded. That inflation, in one of the nation’s most expensive housing markets, makes getting to “functional zero” not only hard, but a challenge with an increasing level of difficulty.

And that’s a challenge we must begin to look at anew. The last time the Legislature took a deep dive into Hawaii’s housing crisis was 10 years ago, when the Joint Legislative Housing and Homeless Task Force made a in advance of the 2006 session. The 58-page document (not counting voluminous appendices) is notable for two reasons: How the problems it identified are exactly the same ones still dogging Hawaii today and how much worse each of them has gotten in the intervening decade.

The problems are large and growing, the market dynamics unhelpful, and ideas and actions at least as big as those pernicious challenges are what’s required.

The median sales price of single-family homes then on Oahu was $550,000, a bargain compared to last month’s $760,000 figure. The point-in-time count of homeless individuals identified 5,935, which 10 years later has grown to 7,921.

Looking at the charge given to the task force for that report, however, is illuminating. The group’s eight areas of inquiry were limited to properties that might be used for low-income rental housing and shelters and streamlining permitting and approval processes for new housing projects. Using the power of government to influence market dynamics in ways that help keep housing affordable doesn’t appear to have been an idea under discussion.

Why shouldn’t rent control or stabilization/leveling be considered for Honolulu and Hawaii more broadly? Rent control as a general idea has been rightly criticized by economists for its unintended side effect — contributing to scarcity in housing stock, and thereby driving up prices in non-rent controlled properties.

But there is no doubt that rent stabilization works well in some markets. Both Germany and Canada, for instance, have used rent control to good effects. Germany has outlawed than those for similar properties, and that’s in a country where 50 percent of residents rent, a figure not that different from Hawaii (43 percent).

In an island state where housing is already in very short supply and pricing is rising much faster than incomes, examining what kind of market controls could make a positive difference for Hawaii renters and those just trying to get a roof over their heads is something that makes sense. Even if such concepts aren’t ultimately implemented, we should know what they might mean for a state where renters’ interests aren’t even looked after by a renters association.

Improving The ADU Law

On the same day that Ige unveiled his functional-zero goal, Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell and the City Council sought to breathe new life into a core piece of the city’s response to its affordable housing and homelessness crises: Enactment of Bill 27, which waives permitting, grading and inspection fees for homeowners seeking to build an “accessory dwelling unit” on their properties. The new law further waives wastewater facility charges for ADUs over a two-year period and permanently waives any park dedication requirements.

It was only last September that the city enacted its law allowing homeowners to build ADUs in a belief that many would scramble to throw up rent-generating units. Instead, Caldwell said Thursday in signing the new bill, the law had only resulted in minor activity, with too many of the estimated 100,000 homeowners eligible to build ADUs complaining that steep fees dissuaded them from moving forward.

The ADU law was a good idea, in concept, and the Council and Caldwell deserve credit for moving aggressively to refine it 10 months after its launch. But it remains to be seen whether waiving fees will make a difference and what contributions these actions make to the availability of affordable stock in Hawaii’s toughest rental environment.

Making a difference in affordable housing and homelessness requires that kind of nimble attention to laws and policies. It requires a level of planning to take homelessness to a “point at which the state has sufficient capacity to house any newly homeless individuals in less than 90 days,” as the Ige administration explained in introducing its functional-zero goal. It requires looking at rent policies through new eyes and asking what flavor of control might represent a net win for Hawaii renters.

It requires all that and more — creativity, innovation and the ability to look beyond the challenges and strategies that have gotten us to this untenable point. It requires elected officials willing not only to put specific strategies in front of voters, but to be held accountable for the results of those strategies.

The problems are large and growing, the market dynamics unhelpful, and ideas and actions at least as big as those pernicious challenges are what’s required if we ever hope to get to a better place regarding one of life’s most fundamental needs.