Yesterday, volunteers and outreach teams fanned out across Chinatown, downtown Honolulu and other Oʻahu neighborhoods for the federally mandated Point-in-Time count. Field organizers and outreach workers say the snapshot again laid bare a familiar pattern: people with untreated mental illness or substance-use disorders cycling between the streets, hospitals and jail. Organizers say a fuller, verified report of the 2026 count will be published later this spring.
The Oʻahu effort was coordinated by Partners In Care, drawing volunteers, outreach teams and shelter staff from across the island. For the first time, hospitals on Oʻahu collected information alongside street teams, and volunteers handed out incentive kits and conducted surveys in neighborhoods from Chinatown to Waianae, as reported by Hawaii News Now. Organizers say the snapshot is meant to steer resources toward the places that need them most.
Outreach Crews Log Encounters As Shelters Feel The Squeeze
According to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, outreach teams with the Institute for Human Services recorded 844 encounters involving 413 individuals in October 2025. Those contacts led to 15 moves into temporary shelter and nine into permanent housing during that outreach period.
Emergency shelters run by the Institute for Human Services served 1,664 people in fiscal 2025, and older adults made up a significant share of new intakes. That mix, reported by Institute for Human Services, highlights growing pressure on already limited short-term capacity.
Courts And Care Keep Missing Each Other
Service providers told count organizers that people arrested for low-level offenses are frequently sent for evaluation, found unfit for court, have their charges dismissed and are then released without treatment. The result, they say, is a kind of bureaucratic boomerang that keeps people vulnerable while soaking up emergency and public-safety resources…