On a recent Wednesday morning at the hula mound at Kuhio Beach, Susan Willick moved through clusters of sunbathers and tourists to a man sitting alone on a grassy rise in the middle of Waikiki’s busiest stretch of sand.

Amid the churn of visitors — families spreading towels, surfers heading out — he remained withdrawn and apart.

Willick, an outreach worker with the Waikiki Business Improvement District, knelt beside him and spoke softly. Minutes later, Dr. Louie Gangcuangco of Waikiki Health joined her, crouching to assess the man as Honolulu Police Department community policing officers provided data support.

As Gangcuangco checked on him, Willick began calling for a shelter bed. The man hesitated, then nodded. Within minutes, he agreed to go — first to Waikiki Health, then to a shelter.

It’s seldom this straightforward, but encounters like this underpin a broader strategy reshaping homelessness in Waikiki’s core. Homelessness there has dropped sharply over the past three years, driven by coordinated outreach, medical care and enforcement — even as encampments grow along nearby beaches, where jurisdictional gaps limit the city’s authority.

A point-in-time count on April 16 found 201 people experiencing homelessness across Waikiki and nearby areas, down from 251 in September 2022, according to WBID and the University of Hawaii. The steepest decline came along Kalakaua and Kuhio avenues and Kuhio Beach, where unsheltered homelessness fell about 91%.

The figures, from a biannual count with UH’s School of Urban Planning, are measured against a multi-agency crime reduction and social services strategy launched in September 2022 through the Safe & Sound Waikiki partnership that includes the mayor’s office, police, prosecutors and community groups.

WBID President Trevor Abarzua said the results reflect layered work combining outreach, healthcare and enforcement.

“When we compare the work we are doing with our mainland counterparts … the progress we are seeing is unprecedented,” he said. “A 91% reduction … is a national feat.”

Many of Waikiki’s homeless are transplants who like any other visitors to Hawaii are drawn there first, Abarzua said. WBID will pay for travel home if a vetted support system is in place.

A key piece is WBID’s street medicine partnership with Waikiki Health, which started a year ago and expanded to twice weekly in February. The program augments WBID’s own outreach programs —Willick is a dedicated outreach worker and some of the programs Aloha Ambassadors also provide similar services.

Gangcuangco said the medical program’s success relies on building trust.

“Some are skittish and walk away. But after they see us week after week … eventually it becomes something like ‘Hey, can you call my mom for me?’”

He connects patients to insurance, medication and care — sometimes treating them on the street. “Housing is healthcare — it’s really very important,” he said.

Willick, who lives in Waikiki and has worked there for more than a decade, said coordination has changed outcomes.

“I often refer to myself as a ‘walking referral booth,’” Willick said, adding that she walks weekly with Gang­cuango and the HPD community policing team, and also works with client navigators from The Queen’s Medical Center

“Ninety percent, yes,” she said when asked how often the homeless individuals that they encounter in Waikiki agree to take injectible psychotic medications. “It’s absolutely amazing seeing the personalities change.”

Waikiki resident John Deutzman, who tracks crime data and partners with the Safe & Sound Waikiki initiative, said the improvements in the Waikiki core are visible and measurable.

“I used to call it ‘area 666’ for a reason, and now it’s like heaven,” Deutzman said. “It’s been a dramatic improvement. The numbers don’t lie, and the University of Hawaii is tracking it in a very scientific way.”

Jurisdictional issues

While Zone 2 — Waikiki’s core corridor — dropped to just 10 people, the April count showed increases elsewhere. Zone 1, including Fort DeRussy Beach, rose to 57 from 49 in October 2025. Zone 6, which includes Ala Moana Beach Park outside the WBID boundary, climbed to 49.

“We’ve seen a 25% reduction in the entire radius, but the biggest reductions are in Waikiki’s urban core,” Abarzua said. “The data shows us where people are going, and we adjust strategy based on that.”

HPD Major Paul Okamoto said the increases reflect displacement pressures and limits on enforcement. Fort DeRussy falls under the state Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR), leaving Honolulu police without full authority to enforce park closures or camping bans.

A prior city-state right-of-entry agreement expired in 2015. Since then, the beach has become a refuge as enforcement tightened elsewhere.

DLNR said in an email that “Complaints about unhoused individuals sleeping and camping on the beach” prompted the original agreement.

DLNR “receives complaints … on a weekly basis from the public and the hotels, ” and has responded with joint operations.

“Since 2024, DLNR has been part of monthly cleanup operations” with state, city and military partners.

Still, DLNR acknowledges limits,”We consider cleanups successful when people move on … however, (we) cannot force people into shelters or programs. Sometimes they choose to return.”

DLNR communications director Andrew Laurence added that, “Governor Green’s administration remains committed to finding effective long-term solutions to aid individuals dealing with houselessness.”

DLNR is now working with the city on a new right-of-­entry agreement. The push for coordination is reflected not just in policy talks, but in how agencies operate together on the ground.

Officials from the Honolulu Department of Community Services (DCS) said in an email that the department “in coordination with other city departments and state agencies along with the Waikiki Business Improvement District and Safe & Sound Waikiki, continues to focus on compassionate triage navigation efforts that connect individuals experiencing homelessness to shelter, healthcare, behavioral health services, outreach, and housing resources … DCS and its community partners remain engaged in ongoing outreach … in Waikiki and surrounding areas.”

Carrot and stick

Okamoto said enforcement is necessary but not enough.

“We’re just one part of the solution,” he said. “In many parts of the country, enforcement is the only solution, and that doesn’t work — all we see is a revolving door.”

HPD officers work with outreach teams and ambassadors, using enforcement to steer people toward services rather than arrest. Six plainclothes community policing officers are assigned to outreach, with two to three on duty each shift.

“The people we come in contact with in Waikiki … are mostly mentally ill or suffer from substance abuse,” Okamoto said. “We need to get to the root of it… now they have hope.”

“Enforcement is important because it creates a stimulus to help people understand that we cannot live on the street … or live in the parks,” he added.

Okamoto said enforcement is done compassionately but meant to push people toward services.

Deutzman said conditions have improved but repeat offenders remain a challenge. “The weak link now is still the judicial system,” he said. “We do have repeat offenders.”

He said about 77% of those arrested in Waikiki show indicators of living on the street and his research of more than 1,000 misdemeanor/petty misdemeanor convictions in Waikiki shows the median sentence is two days.

Joint operations have reduced visible encampments, with tents at Fort DeRussy dropping to about two from 27 on April 16, Okamoto said.

Waikiki’s approach has drawn national attention, with Abarzua set to speak at a policy conference in Washington, D.C.

Still, he said the Fort DeRussy gap highlights the need for aligned authority. “We have service pipelines … But if you are going to say no … you cannot just sit on the sidewalk or live in the park.”

Deutzman said long-term success will depend on consistent enforcement, community cooperation, and deterrent design measures, such as installing dividers on park benches to prevent sleeping, removing picnic tables to discourage loitering, and using trash cans designed to prevent dumpster diving.

He added that relocating the entrance to St. Augustine by the Sea’s food ministry — from across the Waikiki Beach Marriott to a less-trafficked roadway — has created a less-disruptive environment. However, the change has drawn complaints from some residents of the nearby luxury Foster Tower.

“If you eliminate the hangouts piece by piece, the problem goes down … The problem starts to go away,” Duetzman said.

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – A man was injured Saturday night after a driver allegedly hit him on Kapiolani Boulevard.

At about 9:05 p.m., a 39-year-old male driver was heading westbound on Kapiolani Boulevard with his 54-year-old male passenger.

The victim, a 36-year-old man, was walking in the road outside of a marked crosswalk when the vehicle struck him, said police.

Emergency Medical Services treated and took the victim to the hospital in serious condition.

The driver and his passenger stayed at the scene. They were not injured.

Police suspect speed is a factor in this crash, while alcohol and drugs are not.

The investigation is ongoing.

An El Nino cycle is expected to begin this summer, though the strength of that cycle — and how it will impact Hawaii — is still up for debate.

El Nino cycles are defined by warming sea-surface temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean and weak tradewinds that push warm water east toward the U.S. West Coast and can change global weather patterns. Meteorologists have been warning of a possible El Nino, and “super El Nino,” in recent months, but climate modeling can only forecast so far ahead.

According to the latest update from NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center on Thursday, an El Nino cycle had an 82% chance of emerging between May and July and a 96% chance of continuing through December to February.

El Nino cycles don’t necessarily mean certain weather will happen, but it tips the scales of probability.

For Hawaii’s hurricane season, which lasts from June through November, El Nino cycles can make it more likely to have increased and more intense storms in the Central Pacific region. That likelihood only increases with stronger El Nino cycles characterized by even warmer surface water temperatures.

“Stronger events do not always mean bigger weather and climate impacts,” the Prediction Center clarified. “Stronger events can make it more likely that certain impacts could occur.”

As of Thursday, the Climate Prediction Center’s data showed it’s more likely for the majority Hawaii’s hurricane season to coincide with a more than 50% chance of weak El Nino conditions between May and August and a 24% chance of moderate El Nino conditions, or water temperatures between 1 and 1-1/2 degrees Celsius warmer than usual from June through August.

The El Nino cycle’s likelihood of strengthening increases through the winter, the prediction showed, with the three months at the tail end of hurricane season — September, October and November — having a 20% chance of being weak, a 31% chance of being moderate, a 26% chance of being strong with water temperatures between 1-1/2 and 2 degrees Celsius warmer than usual, and a 15% chance of being very strong with water temperatures more than 2 degrees warmer than usual.

In the three months leading to January, however, the strength of the El Nino cycle is a tossup, with a 15% chance of it being weak, a 26% chance of it being moderate or strong, and a 25% chance of it being very strong.

A stronger El Nino season in the winter and spring could mean even warmer and drier conditions are likely, Hawaii State Climatologist Pao-Shin Chu told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, which can increase wildfire risk.

The August 2023 Lahaina wildfire was preceded by a strong shift from a La Nina cycle, which is characterized by cooler than usual surface sea temperatures in the Pacific, to a strong El Nino in July. Winds from a nearby hurricane exacerbated the fire’s reach in the arid area, killing 102 people and destroying more than 2,200 structures.

In the meantime, state and county emergency officials are encouraging all residents to be prepared for natural disasters. While an El Nino cycle doesn’t mean Hawaii will be hit with hurricanes or wildfires, it only takes one disaster to have catastrophic consequences.

The state Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs Insurance Division is advising consumers to evaluate their insurance policies before hurricane season begins June 1, adding that most standard homeowners and renters insurance policies do not cover hurricane or flood damage.

Emergency officials said residents should have a plan of action, as most shelters across the state cannot withstand hurricanes beyond a Category 1 storm, which can generate sustained winds of 74 to 94 miles per hour.

Only three state buildings have completed or are undergoing hurricane retrofitting for up to a Category 3 storm with sustained winds of 111 to 129 miles per hour, Hawaii Emergency Management Agency information specialist Patrick Daley confirmed. Those are located in the Waialua High School gym on Oahu, the Molokai High School gym and the band room at Laupahoehoe Community Public Charter School, formerly Laupahoehoe High and Elementary School, on Hawaii Island.

Emergency officials said shelters should be a last resort and urged residents to retrofit their homes or seek refuge at another resident’s retrofitted home. Concrete buildings will be a safer option compared to wood buildings and residents should also have a two-week supply of necessities ready in the event of a disaster.

The University of Hawaii Sea Grant program offers a free handbook to help homeowners prepare for natural disasters on its website. The handbook also covers several retrofit measures to protect homes from hurricanes.