Is Honolulu’s Chinatown On The Brink Of A Turnaround? … Residents say new city programs and the dispersal of River of Life’s meal distributions are bringing peace and safety back to a historic neighborhood.
There are promising signs that Chinatown may be turning a corner toward a brighter future: Far fewer homeless and mentally ill people are clustered in its doorways and alleys, the foul smells are dissipating and the palpable sense of fear is fading.
A historic neighborhood that has served as the reception point to the islands for generations of newcomers, Chinatown has always been rough around the edges, a place where poor people arrive and struggle to survive and where urban nightlife thrives.
But the neighborhood had descended in the past few years into a distressed and crime-ridden dystopia overrun by desperate homelessness and a raft of related urban ills.
Crime of almost all kinds rose in Chinatown between 2020 and 2021, according to the Honolulu Police Department’s most recent annual report, with aggravated assaults jumping 35% from 63 in 2020 to 85 in 2021. Rape, robbery, larceny and auto theft rose. In April, a repeat criminal offender stalked a 79-year-old man, then set him on fire.
