In an effort to extend the anti-crime and homeless outreach efforts of the Chinatown Task Force through the year, Mayor Rick Blangiardi has announced that the city is again tapping federal COVID-19 relief funds.

The $647,000 expense will be paid using federal State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds, which also funded the nine-month stepped-up Chinatown law enforcement effort, which wrapped up last week.

Flanked by Honolulu police personnel, including Chief Arthur “Joe” Logan and Honolulu Prosecuting Attorney Steven Alm at a news conference Wednesday at Honolulu Hale, Blangiardi said the funding is being drawn from an allocation of nearly $386 million in federal relief money to the city in 2021, during the height of the pandemic.

Since July, the task force has “utilized personnel from Honolulu Police Department District 1 to supplement daily police activity in the Chinatown area by running approximately four or five additional patrol shifts each week, with each shift lasting six hours and consisting of one supervisor and six police officers,” according to a city news release.

Regarding the new funding, Blangiardi said, “That’s going to be able to provide us on the basis of at least a minimum of four or five days a week an additional shift of seven officers — one supervisor and six patrolmen — with the addition of foot patrolmen as an additional deterrent to crime,” he said. “That’s to supplement our ongoing protection that we have down there with our current police officers (and) undercover narcotics agents that are in the area.”

Created in response to citizen complaints about crime and homelessness encroaching on Chinatown residential areas and business spaces, the task force was launched with an initial budget of $500,000 of which about $400,000 has been spent thus far.

The task force has ramped up police foot patrols — mainly in areas from River to Bishop streets and between North Beretania and North King streets. In addition to making arrests for outstanding warrants and drug crimes, the task force addresses matters such as public intoxication, use of private or public property as a toilet and traffic offenses. Additionally, the task force has continued to offer social service contacts to homeless individuals, which includes COVID-19 vaccinations and testings, among other services.

Maj. Calvin Sung said police are focused on “ensuring area residents, businesses and visitors feel safe and secure in this culturally diverse neighborhood.” He noted that from April 1 to Dec. 31, police officers in Chinatown issued about 7,000 warnings and issued about 5,288 citations for “miscellaneous traffic citations, sit and lie violations and some criminal violations.” He added that about 73 arrests were made including for “dangerous drugs, warrants and misdemeanor crime offenses.”

Also, Sung said, there were 1,312 outreach contacts and about 500 residentially challenged individuals were referred to Honu (Homeless Outreach and Navigation for Unsheltered Persons) programs by officers.

Overall, Sung said crime in Chinatown has dropped dramatically — including a 64% decrease in the number of crimes reported, and a 55% decrease in reported drug and narcotics cases. Likewise, he said there’s been a 32% drop in the number of reported property damage crimes in that neighborhood.

Alm said the task force effort includes “collaboration between the mayor’s office, police and prosecutor’s office.”

“From the day Mayor Blangiardi got sworn in, he and I have been working together with the chief … to identify what the community problems are based on what the community says,” he said.

Alm said that while part of the work includes arresting people for breaking the law, the effort also stresses helping homeless individuals get off the streets. Alm added if the homeless individuals “do not take some of the voluntary efforts and they do get arrested by the police department,” a program is in place to provide homeless assessments and potential medical treatment.

Moving forward, Blangiardi said future efforts in Chinatown may include a public-private partnership, possibly with businesses in the Chinatown community, or gaining monies from outside sources, possibly even from the state.

“At the end of the day we’re going to do whatever we possibly can,” Blangiardi said. “We need to be creative here, we need to be innovative. … We don’t want to be doing the same things over again. … I’ve said all along it’s a scalable problem.”

After the meeting, Fran Butera, a Chinatown business owner, said the work by the city in the past year has led to noticeable changes in Chinatown with respect to the homeless, trash and illegal activity. “There’s a huge difference,” Butera said. While she would like to see the city do more more for the neighborhood, Butera said, “I’m very glad to hear about the police foot patrols.”

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Staff writer Peter Boylan contributed to this story.