Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 6, Number 6, 1 June 1989 — Housing Hawaiians [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Housing Hawaiians

By Clarence F. T. Ching Trustee, O'ahu

My earliest recollection of a Hawaiian home is of the one I was born in anel in whieh I spent my first few years. It sat on the Pauoa side of Punchbowl Hill mauka of Honolulu. I didn't know it until mueh later that the plaee of my birth was only a eouple of hundred yards or so

from what had earlier been the Queen's garden at Uluhaimalama* where the planting ceremony demonstrating support for the Queen took plaee on October 11, 1894. Little did 1 know at the time that my first home, the little "shack" containing a kitchen-porch, a bedroom-living room and a bedroom-kitchen, was decidedly substandard by today's criteria. The shower and toilet were in an adjacent structure. My arrival made us a three-generation family whieh included my grandmother, my parents, and one of my mother's cousins and her husband. Other 'ohana members and friends were cilways weleome and sometimes, when they eame from off-island, they stayed over. There were two beds and some had to sleep on the floor. By the time my sister, who is now Judy Ah Sam of Kapa'au, Hawai'i island, eame along I must have graduated to one of the spots on the floor. Fresh foodstuffs were kept in a screened "safe" because there was no refrigeration. A kerosene stove was used for cooking and the poi was kept in a crock in a eool plaee. Families were close then. They had to be, since they lived in such close quarters. There was mueh aloha and patience, and individual wants and needs sometimes had to be sacrificed to the greater needs of the family. This was probably the typical situation for many Hawaiian families, especially those who had moved to urban Honolulu from rural areas. There were other families who lived in similar fashion. Some still do. Some of our families today have even less. We have people who live in cars and vans. We even have those who are "beach people" and "street people." Society, in the guise of government, has not yet solved our housing problems.

At OHA, we worry about how our people are surviving and living. We are concerned about how and what they are eating and how the children are being clothed and educated. We are working to find solutions for housing that our people ean afford and participate in. On a windy Saturday morning in November 1988, four or five dozen people got together on a parcel of vacant Hawaiian Homes' land in the Wai'anae Kai Subdivision on Oahu to break ground for a self-help housing project. Oahu Self-Help Housing Corporation had been contracted by OHA with grant funds from the Administration for Native Americans (ANA) to administer the project. After organizing their family resources of finances and labor (in the form of family and friends), the seven participating families gathered, eaeh ready to begin building its new home with the help of experts on the Oahu SelfHelp team. Because of their "sweat" equity, their approximately $60,000 homes will be costing them around $30,000. Because the lots had already been assigned, eaeh family's members knew whieh home was to be theirs. What they had obligated themselves to do was to pledge a number of hours eaeh week, mostly on weekends, to sequentially construct eaeh step of every home with all families working together. That November day was the kickoff. Fresently, the houses are coming along well and it won't be long until they are finished and occupied. Since then, another mostly-Hawaiian, self-help housing project broke ground at Miloli'i on the Big Island with homes designed by Boone Morrison, who is a well-known photographer. Other potential self-help groups are in the talking stage. Among them, a group led by Rev. Tuck Wah Lee whieh held a recent seminar on self-help housing in Hilo. With funding provided by the 1989 state legislature, OHA's self-help housing efforts will continue. It is hoped by some that OHA's proposed nonprofit corporation will soon be brought into action to further administer the concept. There are other variations of the single-family, self-help house that should probably be eonsidered. Remember the story of my first housing experience at the beginning of this article where Hawaiians may typically house three generations under one roof. There is a non-Hawaiian ethnic group that has been very successful in doing just that.

Filipino families sometimes "double up" to solve their housing and eeonomie problems. Some of their spacious modern homes are not only designed to house more than one family and different generations, but typically include a garden or other edible landscaping. With the ineome of all participating families being pooled, it doesn't take long before the house and land is paid for. With the aecumulated equity, the collective families ean then expand to yet other houses whieh are custom built to their needs, and the cycle continues. Some individual families end up owning more than one house and become landlords who supplement their ineome or provide for retirement by renting to others. The process requires that families live together in relative harmony, with family individuals realizing that any "temporary" discomfort, especially when only one kitchen per home is allowed (by the land use ordinance in the case of an O'ahu project), will eventually result in success for all participants. Because of the " 'ohana" concept, Hawaiians, if they desire, could easily adopt the Filipino method of acquiring housing and accumulating wealth. With self-help principles tied in, the concept becomes even more promising. Participants who build their own houses also end up with marketable stills that improve their choices for employment. Some female participants in an earlier Maili, O'ahu self-help project developed the level of skills necessary for hire as roofers by a private contractor. The self-help housing concept has the potential to really help Hawaiians. All it takes are willing families that are able to work together and who are able to meet the reduced monthly payments. *Note: "Uluhaimalama and the Queen" was a three-part serial written by the author and printed in the April, May and June 1988 issues of Ka Wai Ola O OHA.