The Hawaiʻi H.O.M.E. Project was founded in August of 2005 and our first free clinic began servicing homeless individuals in May of 2006, with the opening of the Next Step transitional shelter in Kakaʻako.
The mission of our program is to improve quality and access to health care for Hawaiʻi’s homeless, while increasing student and physician awareness and understanding of the homeless and their healthcare needs.
Our program currently provides free medical services to homeless individuals at the Pai’olu Kaiaulu Shelter in Waiʻanae, the Onelauena Shelter in Kalaeloa, the IHS Men’s Shelter in Iwilei, and those that receive meals at the First United Methodist church in Honolulu. In addition to these locations, we also utilize our mobile health van for medical outreach services to the unsheltered homeless in the Kakaʻako area.
The Hawaiʻi H.O.M.E. Project provides student-run free clinics, where medical students, pre-medical students, and other volunteers manage most of the duties of running the clinics. Students in all levels of medical training participate in seeing the patients, both as part of
their educational curriculum and as volunteers. The students are supervised at all times by faculty physicians from the medical school and volunteer physicians from the community.
The funding for our clinic services comes mainly from donations, fund raising activities, and grants. The physician supervisors all volunteer their time to work at the clinic.
