Safety concerns are so bad in and around the Kakaako homeless encampment that the state Department of Public Safety, which oversees state sheriff’s deputies, has hired a private security company to guard its nearby offices.

“Security Guard Services are immediately necessary in response to the increasingly confrontational conduct of the public,” states an emergency procurement request for private security services dated Aug. 5. “This behavior by the public poses an immediate threat to the safety of the employees of the PSD (Public Safety Department), DOH (Department of Health) and the public having a bonafide business purpose visiting the building.”

An unarmed, uniformed security guard from Jan-Guard Hawaii Inc. began watching the AAFES Building at 919 Ala Moana Blvd. on Monday near the encampment, where assaults have skyrocketed as the population has swelled.

In addition to the DPS director’s and administrative offices, the AAFES Building houses the Department of Health’s Solid and Hazardous Waste Branch, Environmental Health Administration and state Disability and Communication Access Board, and other offices.

“We didn’t have security, so we put out a bid for security,” Public Safety spokeswoman Toni Schwartz said. “We have had security concerns raised by employees and visitors to our building.”

The contract mentions an Aug. 3 incident in which a public safety employee was chased into the AAFES Building.

“The situation has escalated from PSD and DOH staff being verbally assaulted to being chased by dogs owned by the public residing outside of the AAFES building,” the contract says.

Jan-Guard will provide one security guard from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.

The guard has a wide range of duties: unlocking the first-floor bathrooms to authorized visitors; logging in people and issuing visitor badges; and escorting “unauthorized loiterers, vendors, and/or suspicious persons from the premises. If necessary, contact the appropriate law enforcement agency and assist in issuing trespass notices.”

The $24,000 contract runs through Dec. 31 and avoided the normal bid process because “the health and safety of employees and the public engaged in business at the AAFES building are at risk without the needed security guard services,” according to the emergency contract issued by the state Procurement Office.

Honolulu police and sheriff’s deputies have seen crime — especially assaults — jump as the encampment has grown over the last several months, fueled in part by the city’s “sit-lie” ban that forced homeless people out of economic centers such as Waikiki, downtown and Chinatown.

Prosecutors most recently charged a 29-year-old homeless man in the alleged sex assault of a 21-year-old woman near the encampment, along with threats against family members who tried to help her.

Police arrested MJ Marew on Thursday. He was charged with second-degree sex assault, first-degree terroristic threatening and first-degree burglary. His bail was set at $25,000.

Police said the woman, who lives in the homeless camp, reported being sexually assaulted at about 5 a.m. Aug. 2.

Two of the victim’s family members, a 37-year-old man and a 58-year-old woman, who confronted the man, were allegedly threatened by the suspect with a dangerous instrument.

U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz has seen the encampment of tightly packed, wood-reinforced tents and tarps and called it “heartbreaking.”

“We all feel a collective sense of a moral obligation to do something about this,” Schatz told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Tuesday. “We also recognize that there are families in need of a home and park users and others in the Kakaako area who have a right to use sidewalks and bathrooms without feeling like they’re in an unsafe or unsanitary situation. It’s a challenge that has to be addressed with a real seriousness of purpose.”

Schatz said, “We want to be as impatient as necessary to take action, but we also want to get it right. We should move quickly but not erratically. For example, an enforcement action is of little use if all you’re doing is moving folks from one part of Honolulu to the other. On the other hand, we can’t accept the status quo.”

U.S. Housing and Urban Development officials have told Schatz that Hawaii’s homeless situation is different from that on the mainland, where “homelessness has gone down nationally by double digits in the last count. Obviously it’s gone up locally.”

The latest annual Statewide Homeless Point in Time Count was conducted Jan. 25 and released in June. It found the highest homeless population across the islands in five years: 7,620 people, up from 6,918 a year before.

On Oahu the survey counted 4,903 homeless people, up from 4,712.

“While what HUD has done across the country appears to be working, there’s an increasing recognition that we want to take the best practices nationally but have to be modified for our unique circumstances,” Schatz said. “Part of the process is we’ve asked HUD to provide their technical expertise so that we can make sure we’re making choices based on the current best practices.”

Unlike many areas of the mainland, Hawaii has high housing, land and construction costs.

“On the mainland you can move to a less expensive market,” Schatz said. “If you’re in Hawaii you don’t have that kind of flexibility because we’re an island state. Those are the two driving differences.

“They’re doing very solid work across the country, but something is simply not working yet in Hawaii,” Schatz said. “We want to make sure we bring all the federal resources to bear that are available to help our state and local leaders attack this challenge as expeditiously as possible, but also with the kind of precision that will help to solve it.”