About 30 homeless people living in tents and tarps around Pearl City’s Neal S. Blaisdell Park took tentative steps toward life off the streets when 11 social service agencies this week offered assistance getting them everything from jobs to medical services to replacing lost birth certificates.

Waikiki Health’s Care-A-Van program led a contingent of outreach workers who started Thursday morning by scouring the bushes and weeds that line the bike path along the water’s edge around Blaisdell Park, looking for homeless people in need of help.

At the end of the three-hour effort, a dozen homeless military veterans had linked up with services geared specifically to them; eight homeless people signed up for food stamps; seven plugged into the Legal Aid Society of Hawaii, mostly to obtain duplicate Social Security cards, birth certificates and state IDs they need to get jobs and permanent housing; four received medical treatment from Waikiki Health; four got linked up with the Institute for Human Services’ employment program; and three applied for state Med-QUEST health insurance.

"We’re very pleased with the numbers," said Michelle Ip, outreach manager for the Care-A-Van program. "We might look into doing this more often in other areas because it’s very beneficial to the people staying on the street."

The feelings were reciprocated.

"It’s really good," Bunny Boisjolie, 62, said after getting help from the Legal Aid Society to both apply for Social Security benefits and begin the process to get a new state ID, which was stolen from her tent about five months ago. "Very much so, I appreciate it."

Unlike the estimated 300 people living in the sprawling homeless encampment in Kakaako, the homeless folks around Blaisdell Park tend to live by themselves, Ip said.

Boisjolie, who is originally from Molokai, has been homeless on Oahu since 2012. But she found a homeless community she likes on the edge of Blaisdell Park, where she moved this year after her 1998 Nissan Prelude she had been living in was impounded.

"I lived in that car until they towed it away," she said. "There was so many tickets on the thing that I just let them have it."

Taylor Mulleitner, 24, can’t even remember how or when she lost her ID after she became homeless four years ago.

So Mulleitner welcomed assistance from the Legal Aid Society to help get a new one.

"I lost it in a …," Mulleitner said without finishing her thought. "I forget. It was a long time ago. You can’t do nothing without an ID."

Mulleitner also eagerly accepted a donated ball cap and sports bra because, she said, "I don’t have jack squat."

The social service agencies that sent outreach workers to Blaisdell Park frequently pair up. Then every few months, Ip said, they all come together to target specific homeless populations with a whole range of services.

"We’ve noticed more people are in Blaisdell Park," Ip said. "Why not work together and focus services where they’re at?"

But the outreach workers also know that they have to take a long-term view if they want to see more homeless people get off the streets.

"Even if they’re not ready today," Ip said, "they might remember that day in the park when ‘I could get my birth certificate through Legal Aid.’"

Paniani Maugaotega, 53, received a plastic bag filled with toothpaste, a toothbrush, shampoo and soap and visited with as many social service agencies as he could at Blaisdell Park.

He’s been homeless for seven years after getting out of prison in 2004 with no place to go.

Like the social service outreach workers, Maugaotega also has a long-term view of his ability to turn his life around.

Asked to explain, Maugaotega pointed to the sky and said, "The man: He gives and he takes away."