Back in June 2016, when the city announced plans to turn a four-story industrial building in Iwilei into Hawaii’s first all-in-one homeless project, Mayor Kirk Caldwell said the project would be a “game-changer.” With this week’s opening of Punawai Rest Stop on the ground floor, there’s a buzz of excitement that the overall city-state-private effort indeed holds that sort of potential.

An inviting hygiene center, Punawai offers a clean and safe place to take a hot shower, rows of washers and dryers for laundry, free Wi-Fi on a set of laptop computers, and postal services.

Caldwell has rightly pointed to the center as a “compassionate” element in the city’s ongoing “compassionate disruption” strategy for the homelessness problem, which has involved years of disrupting encampments and establishing services that aim to move people living on the streets into permanent housing.

Floors above Punawai are slated for 35 studio “Housing First” supportive apartments. Homeless tenants will get in-house treatment for mental health problems and drug and alcohol abuse as well as job training and placement assistance. Also in the works: medical services. That could help reduce emergency room visits among the homeless population, which is now overwhelming ERs.

With all of these services working together under one roof, there’s hope for more strides toward thwarting homelessness in the islands.