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Death is the clear sign that Honolulu is in a life-threatening crisis and we have turned no corner, the tragedy has not found a remedy; instead it is increasingly a killer. Read more

Three hundred and seventy-three lives lost, 373 stories of dying homeless in Honolulu.

Last week, Honolulu Medical Examiner Dr. Christopher Happy released the bare sketches of persons between 2014 and 2018 considered homeless at the time of their deaths in Honolulu.

The absolute number is staggering, each one a story of misconnections, short-circuited lives, families lost.

Many died as they lived, outside, alone at a bus stop at Wahiawa Botanical Gardens, in an alcove at the Hauula Post Office, in a shipping container, in a tent by their son’s home and many unattended in their car.

Some of the causes of death listed include acute alcohol intoxication, hanging, drowning, lobar pneumonia, blunt force trauma and methamphetamine toxicity.

The average age of death was 52.6 years, which Happy said was well below the current life expectancy in the U.S. of 78.6 years old and over 80 years old here in Hawaii.

He said some patterns in the deaths show “disease and poor hygiene, violence, the abuse of narcotic drugs, and even drowning,” emerge as causes.

“It’s clear from the data that we gathered that living on the streets leads to an early death,” Happy said.

In 2014, 72 died homeless. In 2018 the count was 90.

Death is the clear sign that Honolulu is in a life-threatening crisis and we have turned no corner, the tragedy has not found a remedy; instead it is increasingly a killer.

Lt. Gov. Josh Green, an emergency room physician, helped start a Chinatown crisis center last year, Hawaii Homeless Healthcare Hui at the Chinatown Joint Outreach Center, 61a North Hotel Street.

Green and Kaneohe physician Dr. Scott Miscovich, started the center to first allow the homeless people to catch their breath, clean up and get quick attention, with the hope it would move them into a more complete care center.

“The real focus is first hygiene and respite,” Green said in a telephone interview.

“But still, we can only see these people for two hours at the most, we can deal with their anxieties, give them antibiotics, but there’s a good chance they are going to lose their meds, they will contact every complication, they are going to need more,” Green said.

Today the center, dubbed H4 Hawaii, passes out pills, does vaccinations and stitches, and helps with burns, allergies and asthma attacks.

“We have an epidemic of homelessness in Hawaii and it has to be treated as any other major illness. We have to set up and prepare for the entire state to offer medical respite,” Green said. “First we have to get these people into a shelter and then we have to move them into some sort of a permanent housing community.”

Living as a homeless person in Honolulu could mean dying 30 years early, he noted. “There are many reasons, addiction, infection, sepsis.”

Green hopes the city will continue funding the treatment center to include full-service urgent care center a respite center for patients to stay for a short time and also a transition center to get patients focused on living on their own.

Without that, the medical diagnosis is blunt and grim.

Said Green: “You have to get these people off the streets or their health problems will blossom and they will die.”