With a month of operations under its belt, the Iwilei Resource Center, which serves as headquarters for the city’s Crisis Outreach Response and Engagement Program, is gearing up to serve at full capacity while assessing the facility’s strengths and weaknesses.

The center opened in June after sitting vacant for a year — treating homeless people with medical conditions that are too serious for shelters to handle but not severe enough for hospitalization. However, its ultimate goal is to find permanent housing for clients who would otherwise go back to the streets.

“These are the hardest of the hard to take care of, treat and place, in my opinion,” Honolulu Emergency Services Director Dr. Jim Ireland said. “These are the folks you’re seeing literally on the sidewalk with no blanket, no pillow, no shelter, flies all around them, open wounds — these are really challenging patients to take care of who desperately need help.”

The Iwilei Resource Center is the latest addition to the city’s campus of resources for houseless people, concentrated in the Iwilei neighborhood. Around the block lies Hawaii Homeless Healthcare Hui’s Punawai Building, a medical respite for homeless people recovering from illness or surgeries.

When the center opened, Ireland seemed confident in its capabilities to hit the ground running, even expecting the center to be at full capacity by the end of that week.

Now, Ireland said, CORE intentionally operates at around 25% capacity to not overwhelm the 20-person staff and other clients. They currently serve around six to seven patients, their full capacity being 20 to 22 hospital beds, Ireland said.

“This was a brand new enterprise for the city — it’s very, very new,” Ireland told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. “So we purposely started out very slow and deliberate to make sure that we had all the kinks worked out.”

Clients are admitted to the center after undergoing an assessment of medical and social needs that the center can tend to. Then the homeless clients are guaranteed a 90-day stay at the facility while the CORE staff works with them to get state identification and permanent health care, find housing and recover from any of their hindering medical conditions.

Operations have gone relatively smoothly, though CORE supervisor Jenny Neal admitted that days can be “pretty wild” as the staff is trying to find daily routines to follow.

The staff aims to “meet people where they’re at,” Neal said, which means faci­litating visits from social workers, setting up telehealth appointments and driving clients to doctor appointments around the island, Neal said.

Damien Francisco, 47, has lived in the facility since its opening date and is on his way to find housing. Earlier this week the CORE staff was preparing the paperwork to present to Partners in Care — a nonprofit organization — that will begin his placement in some type of permanent housing.

Originally from the Kaimuki area, Francisco is a Kalani High School graduate who became homeless five years ago after his cellulitis, diabetes and heart condition forced him out of his job as a manager at a now closed Teddy’s Bigger Burgers.

Francisco lived with his father and his father’s girlfriend, but after they moved to Tennessee, Francisco couldn’t afford to pay bills by himself. Before moving to the center, Francisco lived houseless around the Ala Moana Beach Park area.

Francisco’s always been in and out of the hospital, he said. In one year he went to the hospital six times, with his longest stay being over a month.

Ireland said those types of unnecessary hospital stays are what will ultimately save the city at least tens of thousands of dollars. One client that CORE served at the facility was in the hospital for 100 days, Ireland said.

“That’s a hospital bed that another sick person can’t use,” Ireland said. “All this person needed was a place to go that was safe where they could get their antibiotics and get off the street.”

After receiving medical attention at the center, Francisco said, “It’s saving me.”

Though he can’t get a hold of his favorite blueberry banana peanut butter milkshake at Teddy’s while at the facility, Francisco said that he’s grateful he’s not starving as the staff serves clients three meals and two snacks a day.

In fact, he’s lost 40 pounds since he was admitted, he said.

“It’s really some place where people need to come to heal up,” Francisco said. “The people are good, nice to you — they really care.”

As a self-proclaimed people person, Francisco said he hasn’t stopped laughing since his arrival as he constantly is talking to staff and other clients, playing cards and singing.

“I have fun every day with these people,” Francisco said.

But the first month also has unearthed challenges for the facility and its clients, the most impactful being the center’s strict set of rules.

The rules, which include firm limits on leaving and reentry and visitation from guests, ensures a safe environment for both CORE staff and the clients, Ireland said.

Upon hearing the restrictive rules, some clients either left the facility or stayed on the street, Ireland said.

“That has to be their decision,” Neal said.

Some clients who were admitted to the facility were also addicted to methamphetamine and wanted to leave to get more drugs and come back, Ireland said.

“We can’t have a facility that’s just a free-for-all where people are going to be able to leave and do drugs, leave and not take care of themselves, and then just come back and kind of crash out,” Ireland said. “It’s not a shelter; it’s actually a place for medical care.”

Some clients simply didn’t like the center’s food, so they left, Ireland said.

“It just wasn’t a good fit for them at the respite,” Ireland said.

Declining treatment is a decision that depends on what the clients want for themselves, but they’re able to return to the center to try the 90-day program again, Neal said.

“Everyone deserves a second chance,” Neal said.

But Francisco said that the rules keep him in check. Not leaving the facility has helped him save money, refrain from buying junk food and cleanse his system of alcohol and drugs, he said.

“Temptation is wide out there,” Francisco said.

Clients also aren’t allowed to have visitors while at the facility. For Francisco, that means he can’t see his girlfriend, who’s homeless as well.

“She’s out there,” Francisco said. “But I’ve called her and she’s OK.”

The next steps for the facility are clear: get clients into housing and get to full capacity, Ireland said.

Neal said she is “definitely confident” in the center’s ability to operate at full capacity, and Ireland said he’d like to start “hitting the gas pedal” with one month down.

And Ireland said that with new affordable housing plans and Gov. Josh Green’s tiny-home villages set to sprout up islandwide, CORE will have guaranteed places to discharge their clients in the future.

Yet to be opened are the facility’s remaining three floors, which include 27 studio apartments for low- income rentals. However, the city Department of Community Services is determining the best possible way those apartments can be utilized, DCS spokesperson Adam LeFebvre told the Star-Advertiser.

Though the timetable for Francisco’s housing plans are currently unknown, he said he knows his experience at the facility has made him a better person than he was before. Once he’s healthy, he said, he’s going back to work.

“I’m ready for that,” Francisco said. “I don’t want to be on the street.”

HOW TO HELP

>> The public can donate clothing items or volunteer at the Iwilei Resource Center by calling the 24/7 CORE hotline at 808-768-2673.