Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 19, Number 5, 1 May 2002 — Homeless and helpless [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Homeless and helpless

A homeless Hawaiian in his native land is a sad, sad, situation, A number of individuals and families have been living on the beaches and streets; constantly harassed by gov~ ernmental agencies and private landowners, A greater number are living in crowded low rent housing, a step away from being homeless, Hawai'i of old had always provided a homestead for every Hawaiian to live on and elaim as his own, The Native American (īndians) fare mueh better, He ean simply pitch his tepee on a reservation and live peacefully, forever if he wishes.

Another sad, sad situation would be for OHA to do nothing to allevi~ ate and help the homeless and the Hawaiian (1/64), ī would eall it a travesty of human negligence, īn my April newsletter, ī had emphasized that the Native Hawaiian (50 percent) would be taken care of by the Hawaiian Homes Commission (HHC) with low cost housing furnished by the Quality Homes of the Pacific, with excellent financing and available HHC lands, Housing for the native Hawaiian would experience unpar~ alleled growth.

The parameters to help the (1/64) Hawaiian housing program exists with low cost housing, and 100 per~ cent financing, only land is missing, How ironic, the Hawaiian is elaiming the return of all Crown and Government land of 1,2 million acres, yet not a single acre of land has been returned, OHA should immediately negoti~ ate with the State for part of these vast acres for housing, īf it is not possible then OHA should purchase needed land, OHA should initiate a pilot subdi~ vision; a 100 lot zero lot line devel~

opment, Twenty percent of the developed subdivision should be allocated for qualified homeless or first time buyers; those with fami~ lies but cannot rent or purchase because of minimal ineome wages, Also the group should include the single parents, And the "profession~ ally unemployed," who love to live on the beach, and the drug addict ean also be accommodated, ī will devote most of my time as a trustee to this housing project, īt is my hope that this article will give some spark and lots of visibility to support this project, ■

Charles Ota 7rusfee,, Maui