{"id":220890,"date":"2025-08-26T12:11:57","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T22:11:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=220890"},"modified":"2025-08-27T09:50:01","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T19:50:01","slug":"home-project-20th-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2025\/08\/26\/home-project-20th-year\/","title":{"rendered":"H.O.M.E.<\/abbr> Project marks 20 years of care for Hawai\u02bbi\u2019s houseless"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>
\"students
JABSOM<\/abbr> faculty Sandi Tsumoto and a student work with a patient at the clinic.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For 20 years, the University of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> at M\u0101noa John A. Burns School of Medicine<\/a>\u2019s (JABSOM<\/abbr>) Houseless Outreach and Medical Education (H.O.M.E.<\/abbr>) Project<\/a> has been on the frontlines of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>\u2019s houselessness crisis, delivering free care while training the next generation of physicians.<\/p>\n

Founded in 2005 by Jill Omori, JABSOM<\/abbr>‘s director of the Office of Medical Education, H.O.M.E.<\/abbr> began as a single tent clinic.<\/p>\n

Health isn’t just about medicine. It’s about wellbeing,
—Jill Omori<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“When I was a student, I wanted experiences like this, and there was nothing,” Omori said. “When we started, we were in a tent with shower curtains for walls.”<\/p>\n

Today, the program operates multiple mobile clinics and one brick-and-mortar site in Iwilei, serving hundreds each year. Students provide wound care, checkups and specialty services, while also connecting patients to food, housing and income support.<\/p>\n

“The mission of H.O.M.E.<\/abbr> is to provide the basic human right of healthcare,” said third-year JABSOM<\/abbr> student Philip Lee. “We as medical students learn to take a patient history, perform exams and build rapport. We\u2019re not just treating the disease, we\u2019re treating them as a person.”<\/p>\n

The clinics have helped ease pressure on Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>\u2019s healthcare system. Omori noticed that on the days they had clinics in certain areas, there were fewer EMS<\/abbr> calls at that time.<\/p>\n

Beyond medical care, H.O.M.E.<\/abbr> runs annual drives for school supplies, holiday meals and gifts for mothers. “Health isn’t just about medicine. It’s about wellbeing,” Omori said.<\/p>\n

As the project celebrates its 20th year, Omori hopes one day such services won\u2019t be needed. <\/p>\n

“For a long time we were the only ones providing truly free care,” she said. “Our program fills a very big need in our community.”<\/p>\n

Lee added, “At the end of the day, we all pursue medicine because we love people. H.O.M.E.<\/abbr> reminds you of that every day.”<\/p>\n

Read more at JABSOM<\/abbr><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JABSOM<\/abbr>\u2019s H.O.M.E.<\/abbr> Project has provided free care for Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>\u2019s houseless community while training future physicians.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[165,686,1329,31,1466,9],"class_list":["post-220890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-health","tag-homeless","tag-houseless-outreach-and-medical-education","tag-john-a-burns-school-of-medicine","tag-manoa-enhancing-student-success","tag-uh-manoa","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220890"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220890\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":221015,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220890\/revisions\/221015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}