Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 32, Number 1, 1 Ianuali 2015 — What does the Office of Hawaiion Affairs do? [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

What does the Office of Hawaiion Affairs do?

"W1 Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) do?" is the question I am most often asked as an OHA Trustee. OHA was established by the delegates of the 1978 Hawai'i State Constitutional Convention. The Hawai'i Constitution

charges OHA with a very eomplicated and sweeping mandate to manage a group of trust assets, on behalf of its approximately 250,000 Hawaiian beneficiaries living in Hawai'i. Trust assets include a Wall Street investment portfolio, commereial real estate properties, cultural properties, such as Waimea Valley (O'ahu), and a number of grants from various sources. These assets have a total annual worth that hovers around $550 million and growing. OHA's annual operating budget of approximately $40 million includes about $10 million in contracts that go to every conceivable service, such as accounting, law, janitorial, construction, catering, flowers and more. About $14 million is paid as wages to our employees, who in turn pay for housing, clothing, transportation, food, education, medicine and entertainment. OHA funds the Native Hawaiian Legal Corp. (NHLC), whieh fights for access to land and water. If not for NHLC, working in conjunction with other legal organizations and OHA's in-house eomplianee team, many of our beaches would be closed to the public, Mākua Valley would still be an active firing range, and many historic sites would have been destroyed. OH A also helped fund the Humphaek Whale Sanctuary, and is a co-manager of Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands. OHA also funds a number of annual flagship events, such the Merrie Monarch hula competition,

The Kamehameha Schools Song Contest, Nā Hōkū Hanohano music awards, Hawai'i Book and Music Festival and many more smaller events throughout the State for the benefit of all Hawai'i. OHA also gives out community-based grants totaling about $13 million a year, whieh fall into six broad categories: culture, health, ineome, education,

governance, and land and water. OHA supports 13 Hawaiian-focused charter schools statewide. These schools are preparing the leaders of the future by grounding their education in Hawaiian values. OHA strongly encourages high school students to go to college, and has awarded hundreds of scholarships over the years. OH A' s health grants include supporting services for prevention of diabetes, obesity and heart disease with thousands of participants every year. We also fund programs targeting hundreds of people on four islands to adopt holistic health lifestyles in order to decrease their rates of chronic illness. The housing programs we support offer linaneial literacy and down-pay-ment assistance for people who are moving from rentals into homeownership. OHA also funds programs for people recently released from prison or homeless persons qualifying for low-ineome housing. One of OHA's flagship initiatives is the acquisition of various culturally valuablelands, such as 2,800-acre Waimea Valley (O'ahu) and 20,000 acres of Wao Kele o Puna Forest lands on Hawai'i Island. OHA also manages commercial real estate properties worth several million dollars. In the end, OHA is an integral part of the Hawai'i economy and an essential asset of not only the Hawaiian community, but all of Hawai'i. ■

LEO 'ELELE TRUSTEE MESSSAGES

PetEr Apo TrustEE, O'ahu