UH JABSOM expands street medicine to Kauai with $1.7 million grant
Kauai's 440 unsheltered residents may now be treated in encampments as JABSOM adds street medicine training and care with a five-year $1.7 million grant.
A new $1.7 million federal grant is sending University of Hawaii street medicine teams to Kauai, where Kauai County’s 2026 point-in-time count found 516 people experiencing homelessness and 440 of them were unsheltered. The five-year award begins with $362,140 in year one and will expand outreach and training on Oahu, Hawaii Island and Kauai through the John A. Burns School of Medicine’s Department of Family Medicine and Community Health.
The program brings care to places clinics often do not reach: encampments and other sites not meant for human habitation. Street medicine is delivered by a physician, physician assistant or nurse practitioner working with outreach staff, and can include wound care, infection treatment, injections, medication delivery and referral to a hospital when needed. Robert Carlisle, a JABSOM associate professor and project director, said the effort is “good for the state” and “good for the people of Hawaii.”
The grant will create new street medicine experiences for family medicine residents in Waianae, Hawaii Island and Kauai while expanding behavioral health and addiction care in the field. The work builds on earlier street medicine efforts and seed funding from the Hawaii Academy of Family Physicians, JABSOM’s Office of Medical Education and the Hawaii Medical Association. County planning documents say homelessness on Kauai increased 155% from 2009 to 2024, even as the 2026 count dipped slightly from 523 people in 2024.
JABSOM and Wilcox Medical Center launched the UH Kauai Family Medicine Residency program in 2025 after a rural residency planning grant and ACGME approval, with the inaugural academic year set for 2026-27 and first residents expected on island in Fall 2027. The residency clinic will be in Kapaa at the Kauai Village Shopping Center. JABSOM’s Kauai Medical Training Track takes six students in each incoming class, provides four-year tuition scholarships plus housing and transportation on Kauai, and requires graduates to practice on Kauai for four years after residency.
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