Social services should respond to homeless cases, Honolulu Police Chief Susan Ballard says

Honolulu Police Chief Susan Ballard said social service experts, rather than police officers, should handle cases involving individuals who are homeless or suffering from mental health or substance abuse problems.

Ballard’s comments came during a Honolulu Police Commission meeting this month after the panel voted to accept a report making recommendations on the Honolulu Police Department’s budget to Mayor Rick Blangiardi.

The recommendations included ways to reduce overtime and address officer shortages but also asked HPD to consider creating a division of specialists to respond to calls involving homeless individuals.

Ballard doesn’t want a new division to deal with homelessness. She wants social services to take on a greater role in responding to calls related to homelessness.

“We should not be creating a whole separate (police) unit for addressing the homelessness,” Ballard told the Police Commission. “The police interaction should be coming less and less, and the social services coming more and more.”

She explained that a new division isn’t feasible because HPD is short-staffed as is, with more than 300 officer vacancies as of Feb. 8.

Due to revenue shortages from the impacts of COVID- 19, HPD is currently budgeted $12 million less than the $312 million it was appropriated in fiscal year 2021. It didn’t request money for new positions this year and is instead ramping up recruitment efforts to fill its manpower shortage.

“When you’re talking about things like that, you’re talking about additional personnel,” Ballard said. “In these days and times, that’s probably not going to happen.”

The Police Commission report, the product of a subcommittee led by commission member Doug Chin, described the division of specialists as being made up of police officers along with trained psychiatrists and psychologists who would respond to cases involving the homeless and people with mental health and drug issues.

Those specialists “might free up standard officers to investigate and respond to general crimes and other duties of importance,” the report said.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii agreed with Ballard, saying there are experts who are better equipped to handle such issues.

“This is all the more important when the people who would be served by this new division have experienced trauma from their interactions with police and may still view a police psychologist as, first and foremost, a police officer — someone who carries a gun and handcuffs,” it said in a statement.