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The state’s Office on Homelessness and Housing Solutions promised to make sure no tenant has to move out after Honolulu’s Central YMCA announced it would end rental subsidies for eight long-term residents.

In an email to legislators and City Council members, John Mizuno — the governor’s coordinator on homelessness — wrote: “In light of the recent Civil Beat Article ‘Honolulu YMCA Ends Rental Subsidies For Long-Term Tenants’… our office … will be stepping in to help with this situation.”

Mizuno said the organization’s CEO, Greg Waibel, confirmed no one would be displaced from the five-story building across the street from the upscale Ala Moana mall. Mizuno could not be reached for comment, but Lisa Ontai, vice president of marketing for the YMCA of Honolulu, told Civil Beat the state is going to take “immediate action to take care of those guests.”

“We’re here to help and support and assist in any way we can,” Ontai said, adding that details are still being worked out.

In the Civil Beat article posted early Wednesday, the YMCA said long-term residents paying $300 a month for a single room and shared bathroom would have to begin paying its full published rate of $400 a week — or $1600 a month plus tax — as of Nov. 1. It said it no longer had the funds to keep subsidizing rents.

Suzanne Spencer, a resident who has been living at the Central YMCA since December 2019, said she still has concerns about how the organization treated residents, including giving them fewer than 45 days notice about the rent hike. Some residents, she said, have already moved out.

Most of the eight long-term tenants receiving the subsidy came to the YMCA through the , a nonprofit focused on finding housing for homeless people, Ontai said.

The YMCA was seen as a transitional housing space for people coming off the street, according to IHS Executive Director Connie Mitchell. She said the institute used to pay its clients’ rents at the YMCA, but that program ended about nine years ago due to funding cuts. 

Spencer, 57, has found it hard to make ends meet through temporary jobs since suffering a brain injury in a car crash more than a decade ago. The affordable rate at the YMCA has allowed her to live independently.

“I don’t have any place to go,” she had told Civil Beat through tears during an interview Tuesday.