‘I Thought He Would Die': Daughter Documents Homeless Dad's Life

Diana Kim, a 30-year-old O'ahu-based photographer, knew her dad was suffering from mental illness, but she lost contact with him and didn't know where he lived. 

In 2012, while shooting a photo essay about the homeless communities around her, she found her father among the homeless in Honolulu. Over the next few years, struggling to reconnect and breakthrough to him, she turned her camera on the man she thought she had lost.

"He would refuse to get treatment, take any medications, eat, bathe, or wear new clothes," Kim told NBC Asian America of her dad who suffered from severe schizophrenia. "I wasn't sure if he would get better. There were times when I thought he would die there on that street."

Kim's father had a heart attack and was taken to a hospital where he was placed on medications.

"Having the heart attack truly saved his life," Kim said. "It gave him the opportunity to get back on a treatment plan. And he has been on it ever since."

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