The clock has run out on avoiding emergency solutions to the homelessness problem Honolulu faces.

Both the public perception of the problem and the realities on the ground back this up.

This has to bring the job for the state’s new homelessness coordinator into sharper focus, and ratchet up the pressure on the executive task force leading the charge.

An alternative site must be found — quickly — to enable the dismantling of the increasingly tense and unhealthy encampment abutting the University of Hawaii medical school, the UH Cancer Center, the Hawaii Children’s Discovery Center and Kakaako Waterfront Park.

As for the perception: The Hawaii Poll, conducted July 24-29 by Ward Research Inc. for the Honolulu Star-Advertiser and Hawaii News Now, found 73 percent of Oahu residents believing Oahu’s crisis has worsened in the past year.

And now there are record numbers of emergency calls that support such a dire conclusion.

City Emergency Medical Services responded to 68 calls in the area around the Kakaako homeless encampment in the first half of 2015. That is rapidly approaching the 80 total calls EMS handled for all of last year.

The increase of calls has been steady, too. For most months this year, the count was higher than for the same period in 2014.

On the criminal side, the Honolulu Police Department has recorded a doubling of simple assault cases from the area, and a jump in aggravated assaults, too.

State sheriff’s deputies, who have joint jurisdiction with HPD, report a similar increase.

And isolated cases of sexual assaults and other offenses have made the headlines.

Most of the victims in these cases are the vulnerable residents of the homeless camp, who have little expectation of security in their tents, hardened as they are with wooden reinforcements.

The neighbors, of course, also are unjustly subjected to a heightened public safety threat. They feel powerless, so respond with short-term coping strategies.

The state Public Safety and Health departments, which have offices in the area, now have the protection of private security guards, hired through Dec. 31 for $24,000 in taxpayer funds.

The contract cites employees experiencing verbal assaults and being chased by encampment dogs into the offices, located in what’s called the AAFES Building at 919 Ala Moana.

This week, Gov. David Ige, who has convened a homelessness task force of high-ranking state and city officials, announced the hiring of Scott Morishige, the executive director of the nonprofit advocacy organization PHOCUSED, as the new homeless coordinator. Morishige did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday.

But the governor said that among the reasons to delay dismantling the Kakaako encampment is the need for better data on the population there.

The survey is required for the state to be eligible for federal money for homeless programs, Ige said, to better match their needs with bed spaces and social services.

What’s frustrating, though, is that government and service agencies have been gathering data for months now, under a newly unified form.

Simply put, the state and city should have been on top of this requirement by now.

There are other problems that other states, where improvements have been charted, don’t experience — such as sky-high property costs. U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz said officials from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development are being consulted to find solutions that fit Hawaii’s circumstances.

That’s fine, but Hawaii’s leaders can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Find publicly available property equipped with basic sanitation and water that can be adapted quickly, at least as a stopgap solution.

Homeless households should be approached and assisted to move to available shelter space, and to whatever substitute camp location is found. But at some point, very soon, the campers must be moved.

Things are spiraling out of control, and public health and safety are at risk.