Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 22, Number 8, 1 ʻAukake 2005 — OHA trustees grant Lunalilo Home $300,000 [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

OHA trustees grant Lunalilo Home $300,000

£ A no'ai kākou. As an / \ advocate for better health A. A.care for all Hawaiians, especially our kūpuna, and as the chair of the Native Hawaiian Health Task Force, I am very pleased to announee that on June 23, 2005, the Board of Trustees approved a grant of $300,000 to help fund the Kūpuna Continuing Care Assurance Program, whieh will be administered by Lunalilo Home over the next two years. The program is designed to help make residential care, respite care, adult day care, and outreach nutritional services (hot meals delivered to a kupuna's home) more affordable for Native Hawaiian kūpuna. Lunalilo Home was established in 1883 by the will of King William Charles Lunalilo to care for poor, destitute and infirmed Hawaiians, with preference given to the elderly. Lunalilo Home has been operating out of its present site at Maunalua since 1927. Operations continued until 1997, when it temporarily suspended operations to undergo a major renovation to its aging twostory structure. OHA helped fund major portions of this renovation

work and operations resumed in August 2001. The new Kupuna Continuing Care Assurance Program will allow Lunalilo Home to subsidize the residential care of kūpuna in financial need. The program is part of a long-term plan by Lunalilo Home to establish partnerships with other organizations so that they may expand their elder care services and assist more kūpuna than it is currently able to serve. An estimated 16,000 Hawaiian kūpuna in the state may benefit from respite care alone. As most of you know, the cost of long-term care for the elderly has risen dramatically in recent years. Families are finding that a kupuna's health plan benefits (private or Medicare) are not enough to cover the cost of long-term care. More and more families are forced to pay for costs out of their pockets or end up doing without long-term residential care for their kūpuna. Of the 38 current residents in Lunalilo Home, approximately 30 of them are only able to partially afford the cost of care or receive government assistance for health

and financial needs. Lunalilo Home partially subsidizes the cost of care for these residents through various fundraisers. The state's older population is also increasing and aging at a rapid rate. Between 1990 and 2000, the population that was 60 years or older increased by 19 percent, compared to about 9 percent nationally. During the same period, the population of Hawaiians 85 years or older increased nearly twice as fast as the national average (68.9 percent versus 37.6 percent U.S.). An estimated 207,001 people in Hawai'i, or 17 percent of the state's population, were 60 years or older in 2000, higher than the national average of 16.3 percent. Hawai'i ranks 20th nationally in the percentage of older persons (60-plus) residing in the state. About 17,564 persons, or about 1 percent of the state's population, were 85 years or older in 2000. Roughly 5.5 percent of the state's population over 60 years of age is Native Hawaiian. About 75 percent of Hawai'i's total kupuna population (ages 60+) resides on O'ahu. An estimated 114,872 family caregivers

reside in the state and provide about 107 million hours of care giving per year at an estimated value in 1997 of about $875 million. Lunalilo Home estimates it could provide services to 167 Native Hawaiian kūpuna per day for two years with the $300,000 grant it received from OHA. The home will also be able to expand their muehneeded adult day care services to assist working caregivers and hot meal services through Meals-On-Wheels. After a lifetime of dignity, independence and hard work, our kūpuna deserve access to affordable elder care. If not, we will run the risk of prematurely losing their wisdom at a time when the Hawaiian community needs it the most. Thanks to the teamwork of OHA and Lunalilo Home, something substantial is being done to assist this vulnerable part of our population. I mua e Hawai'i nei... For more information on Hawaiian issues, eheek out Trustee Akana's website at www.rowenaakana.org. U

Rowena Akana Trustee , At-large