Expand homeless outreach centers

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Editorial: Expand homeless outreach centers Tuesday August 20, 2019 Most homeless people do, in fact, have a home. It’s the community in which many of them have lived for years, even if more recently there’s been no roof over their heads. That’s the thinking behind the initiative of the nonprofit Hawaii Homeless Healthcare Hui to establish facilities known as Joint Outreach Center (JOC), a place that’s located within a community to help the homeless from that area. A welcome addition to the envisioned network of such centers was celebrated Friday in Kaneohe, where the new JOC provides some health care for the homeless population’s immediate needs. This is a project that needs to be ramped up to replicate these facilities more quickly. The Kaneohe center is well-located in a state building next to the Kaneohe Police Station, at the busy intersection of Kamehameha Highway and Waikalua Road; the fire station, regional library and neighborhood park are nearby in what already has served as a kind of civic center for the community. And now there will be information on services and referrals to drug abuse and mental health treatment, all comprising a one-stop shop of guidance to accessible aid from the social safety net. This center, modeled after the first JOC established in Chinatown and is part of a threeyear pilot program meant to redirect many of the homeless who are now flooding hospital emergency rooms to such facilities. The link to medical services, which are offered without regard to ability to pay, is filling the paramount need, but the JOCs also are becoming good points for the distribution of needed clothes, hygiene supplies and food. All of this is provided within reach of the homeless in Kaneohe and adjoining neighborhoods, which increases the likelihood that


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