An audit of a Honolulu homeless assistance initiative that came under fire for being ineffective has been halted because the program keeps changing direction and can’t produce reliable data about its efforts. That development leaves the future direction of the Crisis, Outreach, Response and Engagement program in flux.Known as CORE, the program launched in 2021 to pair social workers with EMTs on 911 calls for help with homeless people in mental health crises. The City Council last September voted to audit the $2.7 million program, citing concerns it had drifted from its original purpose to steer people off the streets and into shelters and services.Acting City Auditor Troy Shimasaki suspended the audit 10 months later, saying CORE’s focus had shifted too frequently and its data systems were too “fragmented.”“We found that the program’s mission, service model, and governance had not been clearly defined over time,” Shimasaki wrote in a June 30 report to the City Council.Taken together the problems that prevented the audit “are absolutely concerning,” Shimasaki told Civil Beat, adding that he couldn’t recall the last time an audit had been similarly suspended.
The auditing team told CORE leadership in the city’s Emergency Services Department that they needed to have “key performance measures so you can hold yourself accountable and demonstrate whatever success or challenges this program may have going forward,” Shimasaki said. “It clearly isn’t available now and it is very difficult for any agency to offer its value to the taxpayers if you don’t do that.”
