Honolulu rolls out first homeless outreach bus

By Kristen Consillio

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    HONOLULU (KITV) — “There are people literally out in our streets left to languish and die,” said Honolulu Mayor Rick Blangiardi. “We don’t want that to happen. Nobody should let that happen.”

The city’s Crisis Outreach Response and Engagement program — known as CORE — is rolling out its first bus that can transport close to thirty people at a time to homeless respite centers and shelters.

“We’re hoping not to have people go back on the street,” he said. “The whole idea here is to break that cycle.”

With the goal of freeing up ambulances for medical emergencies instead of responding to homeless calls every day.

“People were being picked up taken over to the emergency room, treated put back out on the street, nowhere to go,” Blangiardi said.

“The city’s potentially doubling capacity and improving efficiencies in homeless services with its first CORE bus.

“We’ve brought in people with cancers, with lung conditions, heart conditions — all kinds of maladies right there that’s really difficult,” he added.

CORE’s fleet — including two ambulances and four SUVs — will help people get treated and stabilized in hopes of getting them into permanent housing.

“We hope to take a thousand people off the streets this year,” Blangiardi said.

Many of them are suffering from not just chronic diseases, but addictions and mental health issues that are keeping them from getting better.

The city’s also aggressively working to get as many as 1,000 beds across the island this year so that people have somewhere to go.

“Beds of many flavors,” said Anton Krucky, director of the city Department of Community Services. “Helping people on the street get into clean sheets.”

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