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The killing of a homeless man in Kakaako on Wednesday night underscores the deadly world of Oahu’s homeless population, where the average life expectancy is 30 years less than someone with a home for reasons including violence and deteriorating health.
And the threats seem to be growing at a time when traditional sources of food are drying up under the increasing demand for food across Oahu in response to rampant unemployment during the coronavirus pandemic.
“There’s a lot of desperation,” said Connie Mitchell, executive director of the Institute for Homeless Services in Iwilei, which operates Hawaii’s largest emergency homeless shelters. “It’s so discouraging, the amount of violence that has been on the street lately.”
>> READ MORE: Stabbing death of homeless man rattles Kakaako businesses
Two homeless men last month were stabbed in front of IHS’ men’s shelter on Sumner Street in unrelated incidents. One victim was an IHS client, and the other lived in a nearby homeless encampment, Mitchell said.
Last week another male IHS client was found dead in front of the men’s shelter.
“He had multiple underlying chronic conditions, and he was alcoholic,” Mitchell said.
Already this week a 37-year-old homeless woman died following a seizure in IHS’ women’s shelter, and an IHS client in her 60s was found dead in her Housing First apartment, Mitchell said.
The cause of death has yet to be determined for either of the women, Mitchell said.
But the deaths and violence are taking a toll.
“We’ve been visited by a lot of loss recently,” Mitchell said.
Homeless women are at even greater risk, Mitchell said. They are “almost 100%” likely to be assaulted because “people view you as an easy mark,” she said.
Each December, IHS memorializes Oahu’s homeless who die that year, often on the street, during an event called “Blue Christmas.”
In 2019, 127 homeless people died on Oahu, according to Marc Alexander, executive director of the city’s Office of Housing.
“The cause of death for the 127 individuals in 2019 were varied, but some patterns did advance, for example, substance abuse and violence,” Alexander wrote in an email to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Thursday.
The number of deaths in 2019 were up from 120 in 2018 — and up from 87 in 2017, Alexander said.
Last year the average age of every homeless person who died on Oahu was 54.4 years. By comparison, the national average of every American who died was 78.6 years.
As of Wednesday — the same night that a 52-year-old homeless man was stabbed to death during an altercation on Keawe Street near Halekauwila Street — 45 homeless people had died “on the streets” who were not under the care of a physician, Alexander said in an interview.
“It’s really sad,” Alexander said. “I know we live in paradise and it’s so beautiful. But when you’re on the streets it’s not a safe place to be. … You’re vulnerable. You don’t have the same kind of safety and security that a lot of people do.”
The city and state continue to work with nonprofit organizations, the Honolulu Police Department and state sheriff’s deputies to get more homeless people help and housing because it’s simply the humanitarian thing to do, Alexander said.
Even though no coronavirus cases have been detected at Hawaii’s first homeless quarantine site, which opened in April behind IHS’ women’s shelter, it has helped “stabilize, detox them and get them into better shape so they’re better off than when they came in,” Alexander said. “They leave in much better shape (than) when they came in because the streets are just not safe. It makes me really sad. It’s not right. It’s just not right.”
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