Page 4 - Hawaii Island MidWeek - June 8, 2022

4 HAWAI‘I ISLAND MIDWEEK JUNE 8, 2022
Members of the CORE team is available to serve O‘ahu communities seven days a week.
At the heart of Honolulu Emergency Services Department’s newest program is a hardworking team looking out for and taking care of the city’s houseless population, with director Dr. James Ireland leading the way.
Tonight, there are nearly 4,000 people on O‘ahu who don’t have a bed to sleep in. They don’t know when their next bite of food or sip of water will be, nor do they have access to medical care or trans- portation to get from A to B.
Find ways in which the city can better serve the island’s houseless population.
established was to provide relief for Hono- lulu’s EMS and police departments, which have become inundated in the last few years. Dr. James Ireland — the director of Honolulu Emergency Services Department who served in the U.S. Army Reserves as a combat medic and later for the city as an EMT — recalls his time in the back of an ambulance. Around 30 years ago, he says, people would generally only dial 911 for critical emergencies like a heart attack or stroke, but in the time since, there’s been a culture shift. Today, 911 dis- patchers have never been busier.
from people in the homeless commu-
nity, just because they don’t have access to a doctor, clinic, transportation, or money for a cab or Uber, so they disproportionately use 911 a lot.
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It’s no secret that homelessness is prevalent on Honolulu’s streets. But here to do some- thing about it is a small but mighty team of 30 individuals, who — with dignity, respect and compassion — are putting in the groundwork to get O‘ahu’s homeless taken care of, one person at a time.
What came out of those discussions was CORE (Crisis, Outreach, Response and En- gagement), a mostly federally funded pro- gram within the city’s Emergency Services Department.
“We only have a limited number of 911 ambulances and they’re responding to these minor calls that homeless individuals are call- ing for, which takes them away from being able to respond to the beach for a drowning or for a major car accident.”
Last year, a task force featuring officials from the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Homelessness, the nonprofit sector, Honolu- lu Police Department, Honolulu Emergency Services Department as well as homeless in- dividuals, among others, met for six weeks. The group had one goal and one goal only:
One of the many reasons why CORE was
“People still need care, but they don’t nec- essarily need a 911 ambulance with highly trained medics,” Ireland says. “The things I’m referring to are people calling about gout pain in their ankle, the sniffles or because they ran out of medication. What we’re noticing is that unfortunately a lot of the calls are coming
“There are a lot of reasons why people are homeless ... but what I found in working in EMS and now CORE is that the majority do have issues with mental illness and substance abuse, as well as chronic medical conditions and dementia,” explains Ireland. “When a homeless person causes a disruption, lashes
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Composed of emergency medical techni- cians, community health personnel, social workers and supervisors, CORE takes to the streets seven days a week, and just like its acronym suggests, the team frequents heavily populated areas — like Chinatown, Down- town Honolulu and Waikīkī — to not only meet the immediate needs of houseless indi- viduals, such as treating wounds and chang- ing bandages, but also get to know them on a first-name basis and listen to what other ways it can help.
The same goes for the police department.
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