Focus: Household Need

The struggle of households just trying to get by is arguably one of the most pressing challenges in Hawai‘i today.

The umbrella of “household need” includes needed support for access to food, housing, education, healthcare, childcare, new economic opportunities and everything else that is fundamental to quality of life.  The extent of this need is a measure of how we’re doing as a community, and how well we’re responding to the challenges of the most vulnerable among us.

It is a complex and difficult issue to understand, let alone address. In order to effectively serve households in need, government agencies, private funders, social service providers, and community-based organizations need to work together to identify gaps in services and deliver resources effectively so that folks don’t slip through the cracks.

Data can make a difference.

Service providers have expressed a desire to do more with their data to inform their work, and are open to greater collaboration with peers to increase collective impact. Those who fund this work – government and private funders – also seek to gain better data insights from those working directly with households. To that end, HDC supports these organizations in building sustainable internal data capacities while facilitating and nurturing cross-sector data sharing and communication opportunities - working toward a new data culture for responding to household need in Hawai‘i.

What we’re doing to get there.

Learn more about how Hawai‘i Data Collaborative is engaging with the challenges of understanding and responding to household need through data.