In a joint effort to deal with homelessness on Oahu, Mayor Rick Blangiardi and Gov. Josh Green on Monday formally unveiled the Aala Respite at the edge of downtown Honolulu.

The facility, which occupies a former First Hawaiian Bank branch at 445 N. King St. that the city purchased in 2023 with an eye toward future affordable housing, is now staffed with a full medical team to establish care for vulnerable, medically fragile people who’ve experienced long-term homelessness.

The city’s Crisis Outreach Response and Engagement, or CORE, program identifies new patients and coordinates referrals with hospitals. Managed by Dr. Scott Miscovich and Premier Medical Group Hawaii, the respite features 30 medical treatment beds and 30 kauhale, or tiny homes, for use as transitional housing, city officials said.

Premier Medical has received a $4 million annual contract for the project through June 30. The respite site opened in mid-July, city officials said.

During a news conference at the facility, Blangiardi said the state’s partnership on this project — using city-owned land with state-issued funds as well as stated-owned portable kauhale modules — was key to its creation.

“It became very clear to me early on that the city itself did not have enough resources to deal with this” problem, the mayor said. “It didn’t have access to the kind of money to help us provide this. For that matter, the state in and of itself didn’t have the capability the city could add to that.”

The governor agreed.

“We’re working particularly hard with Mayor Blangardi to tackle the challenges here on Oahu,” Green said. “Now you can see this (facility) is a focus of safety, of recovery, of rest, of top-quality health care services.”

A physician by profession, Green noted that “individuals who are on the street suffer so badly, they lose three decades of life.” He added many die before receiving such help — historically, about one unsheltered person a day on the streets of Oahu.

“And that is just not what a civilized society should offer,” he said. “And so it’s exciting to see this critical facility come into this Iwilei area.”

Honolulu Emergency Serv­ices Director Jim Ireland said the facility offers care for those who are “too sick to go into shelters.”

“They had wounds, they had amputations, they were in heart failure, they were on dialysis, they just couldn’t go into existing shelters,” Ireland said. “And what we had was this cycle of streets, EMS, ER and back to the streets, round and round.”

Ireland said the city hoped to duplicate this medical respite center at multiple sites across the island.

Before the news conference, Miscovich told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that Aala Respite offers beds for up to 62 patients but currently houses 45 people.

“And we’d be full by now, but we don’t have power (available) yet to all of the kauhale,” he said, noting the former bank building itself is fully powered and air-conditioned. “That was a little hiccup, because the power that came in from the street needs another generator and needs another transformer, and that will be done by the end of the month” for the kauhale.

Miscovich noted those residing in the unpowered, one-person kauhale units are using hand-held, battery-operated equipment, mainly for use at night.

“I bought these little chargeable fans that have a light,” he said. “Once a day, they’ve got to bring them in and trade them in for another (recharged) fan to keep them cool.”

The appearance of this homeless care site comes as the number of houseless people on Oahu continues to rise.

Based on the latest Point in Time Count data released in May, the number of homeless people on the island increased for the second year in a row — to 4,494 in January — with the greatest increase among those considered “unsheltered,” meaning they were not staying in homeless shelters.

Anton Krucky, city Department of Community Services director, told the Star-Advertiser that to assist the city’s effort, the state provided the portable kauhale.

“And DCS supports the building, so keeping it running, getting electricity up,” Krucky said. “We brought the toilets and showers and all of that kind of stuff, we’ll get it hooked up to sewer, all that kind of stuff DCS does.”

“So we take care of the building for them, and the state gives us money for the contract,” he added.

He said it costs about $1.5 million to $2 million “to run a cohort, or a shelter, for a thing like this on a yearly basis.”

“In this case it’s state money. For some of my other projects, it’s federal money. And for some of my other projects, it’s city money,” Krucky said. “So I think we have two or three like this … but we couldn’t do as many of these as we’re doing if we didn’t have the partnership with the state.”

In 2023 a plan for more affordable housing options in the city was part of the future of the former First Hawaiian Bank site now being utilized as Aala Respite.

Purchased for $8.4 million, the property was identified in the Downtown Neighborhood Transit-Oriented Development Plan as a site of critical infrastructure to support upcoming affordable housing and TOD initiatives in Iwilei, the city said.

In January the Mayor’s Office announced it also had acquired Iwilei Center, a 3.8-acre commercial property the city also planned to convert into new, city-owned affordable housing that will be close to the planned rail line. The city closed a $51.5 million deal to purchase the Iwilei Center, the city said.

After the news conference, Ian Scheuring, the mayor’s deputy communications director, confirmed that future affordable housing for the Aala Respite site as well as the Iwilei Center site will still materialize as planned.

“The mayor spoke dur-ing Monday’s press conference about both sites being used on an interim basis as places to provide homeless services, because when you take into consideration planning, design, permitting … it will likely be several years before the city is ready to break ground on any affordable housing projects in that area,” Scheuring said.

He added, “Rather than let those properties sit vacant or unused while the design and planning process takes place, we are using them on an interim basis to provide services to homeless individuals.”

Meanwhile, those who now reside at Aala Respite appeared grateful to be living there.

Among them, Joseph “Joey” Tauanuu, 33, said until recently he’d been living on the streets of Honolulu after “family issues” displaced him from his Pauoa home 4-1/2 years ago.

“I was on the streets in Chinatown, Ala Moana, Punchbowl — just living on the side of the mountain — oh, and at Kaimuki Public Storage,” he said.