On a late June morning on North Hotel Street in Honolulu’s Chinatown, until recently the epicenter of the state’s homeless crisis, a 67-year-old homeless woman is being eased onto an ambulance cot stretcher. Her lower legs are mottled with cellulitis, a bacterial skin infection that can turn into sepsis without antibiotic treatment.
Robert Lau, an emergency medical technician with CORE, the homeless outreach unit of the Honolulu Emergency Medical Services, talks with her as he gently slides her into the back of the vehicle. She’s heading to a free clinic in Iwilei, the Hawaii H.O.M.E. Project, which is run by supervised students at UH’s John A. Burns School of Medicine. “We try to be patient, welcoming and reassuring,” says Lau, who joined the team in 2024.
About half a dozen members of CORE, which stands for crisis outreach response and engagement, and a similar number of Honolulu police officers trained in crisis intervention, are spending several hours in the historic district coaxing unsheltered people into facilities with medical care. It’s a large group of uniformed officials, but they’re purposefully unintimidating, moving on foot in an unhurried manner. Their vehicles are parked nearby, with lights off…