Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 28, Number 6, 1 June 2011 — Nonprofit offers its money-education program in shelters [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Nonprofit offers its money-education program in shelters

By Harold Nedd For a glimpse of the kind of future Hawaiian Community Assets Executive Director Miehelle Kauhane envisions for her nonprofit organization, head for any of the three transitional shelters along the Leeward Coast of O'ahu. At her $ 1 million outreach program there, a large federal grant covers most of the expenses for services mainly to Native Hawaiian families pushed to their hnaneial edge. But Kauhane is the among the first to admit that her organization would not have been able to secure that $ 808, 1 87 federal grant without key help from the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, whieh contributed the loeal funding match required to fund the program. "We had to raise at least a 20 percent loeal match to secure the federal money and that was the biggest challenge," said Kauhane. "It's not easy to raise 20 percent of $ 1 million in these eeonomie times. But OHA helped us compete for a big pot of federal money to bring to the state." The $316,678 grant that OHA awarded Hawaiian Community Assets in April will allow the nonprotit to continue offering hnaneial education and credit counseling at the three transitional shelters through September 2013. "It is also the first time that we're focusing on families in homeless shelters," said Kauhane, whose organization was established in 2000. "We've always focused on helping homeowners with hnaneial literacy. Our goal with this new program is help families make the transition out of these shelters and into permanent housing in a reasonable amount of time." Among the keys to achieving that goal are 90-minute workshops as well as intense one-on-one counseling sessions on improving money-management skills. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, Kauhane's staffers are required to report directly to the shelters. They spend

entire shifts working with families on their creditworthiness. Without a positive credit history, they could have a hard time qualifying for a car loan, renting an apartment or even getting a job. The grant from OH A is expected to significantly help efforts to improve the creditworthiness of families in the shelters. The grant money, in part, covers small loans ranging from $250 to $500 that Kauhane is making available to about 25 families in the

shelters who grasp the importance of such basic rules in the credit game as paying bills on time.

They will join about a dozen others who already have received these loans, whieh are put in a trust account and used to help families establish the kind of credit that would go a long way toward determining how soon they find stable housing. "The demand for our services is well beyond what we envisioned," Kauhane said. "Our goal when we started the program in October 2010 at the shelters was to serve 100 families annually over a

three-year period. We are only in the second quarter of the first year and we are serving 125 families." ■

4 40ur goal with this new program is help families make the transition out of these shelters and into permanent housing in a reasonable amount of time" — Miehelle Kauhane, Executive Director, Hawaiian CommuntyAssets

Rose Transfiguracion and Ted Kamoku show the Kahua Waiwai hnaneial education curriculum used at Kumuhonua Transitional Shelter in Kalaeloa. - Photo: Courtesy of Hawaiian CommunityAssets