TALK STORY: Houseless to Home Owners

Employees at Hawai’i Community Assets welcome you with open arms and are happy to help you find your forever home.

When Body Glove Cruises partnered with CarbonBuddy in 2019, guests have since had the option to offset the carbon emissions produced by their tour by donating a dollar. Every quarter, we donate these contributions back to the community’s various nonprofit organizations. Because of this, we formed a bond with Hawai’i Community Assets (HCA) – a local nonprofit dedicated to tackling the housing crisis here in Hawai’i. Recently, we sat down to “talk story” with Jeff Gilbreath, the executive director of Hawai’i Community Lending, a subsidy of HCA, to learn more about what it is they do, and where they’ll be going in the future.

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Back in the 90s, two Native Hawaiian women, Blossom Feiteira and Kehaulani Filimoeatu, finally got the call after 30 years: their names were at the top of the Hawaiian Home Lands waitlist. They traveled to a Maui high school gymnasium, where they would discuss their residential lease reward, but within just 30 minutes, the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands declined the two because of low credit and insufficient income.

Their story isn’t few and far between. As they sat in that gymnasium, they talked with the other families there who had been told the same thing. Before Feiteira and Filimoeatu left, they devised the plan for Hawaii Community Assets the very same day, and ignited a spark amidst a desolate future.

In just one year, from 2020 to 2021, the median cost for a home in Hawai’i breached $1 million, and rose by 22%. According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, the hourly wage required to afford a one-bedroom apartment in Hawai’i is $26.11, but the state’s minimum wage is $10.10/hour and the average worker makes $17/hour. Tangentially, Hawai’i has the highest rate of homelessness per capita in the nation, with over half of all houseless individuals identifying as Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander. (These ethnic groups account for only 20% of the state’s population.)

In respect to the Hawaiian population, which suffers disproportionately from the increased cost of living and houselessness, Hawaiian Home Lands is a program that administers over 200,000 acres of public lands from its trust to the Native Hawaiian population. Beneficiaries receive 99-year homesteads at $1 per year, with the possibility to extend the lease an additional 100 years, should the property be handed down generation-to-generation. However, to qualify, recipients must have a blood quantum of 50% Native Hawaiian or more, and then be willing to endure a lengthy application and waiting process, which can still end in disappointment, as what happened to HCA’s founders.

Since that day in the gymnasium, 20 years have passed, and Hawaii Community Assets has remained true to its mission to build hope and keep it alive. Now, HCA is the largest housing council agency in the state, and continues to help people in the community go from houseless to renting to owning their own homes.

Three quarters of the people who walk through HCA’s doors are Hawaiian, and the rest are just local families. 90% of the organization’s staff are Native Hawaiian, and are able to sympathize with the circumstances. They come in to discuss their options, whether they want to buy a home, or are trying to keep theirs. HCA primarily serves families with low credit scores and/or high amounts of debt, because of the cost of living, which results in the same plea: “We just don’t make enough money.” As we chatted with Jeff Gilbreath, he urged locals to come and sit with HCA for free to talk about what their options are, as they have recently rolled out the Homeowner Assistance Fund, which grants up to $30,000 to pay past due mortgage payments and prevent foreclosure. So far, 16 families have been prevented from being foreclosed on.

Hawai’i Community Assets has come a long way since it was just an idea, and continues to have ambitious plans for the future. In the coming year, HCA’s goal is to house 250 families with a continued focus on Native Hawaiians. They are also envisioning an affordable housing initiative, with plans to construct three tiny home communities that will utilize photovoltaic systems (solar) to offset the community’s carbon footprint, as well as have community centers and gardens for residents to utilize. The homes will be available to rent, rent-to-own, and purchase.

Nonprofit organizations need to fight for every dollar they receive, and Jeff urges visitors to make a donation and invest in the communities they visit. Opportunities like CarbonBuddy are a way to offset your carbon footprint, as well as the negative impacts of tourism on the community and the people who live there. As Jeff put it, “If folks love Hawai’i, we can only hope that they would make the investment to better locals’ lives.”

So we here at Body Glove Cruises, urge you to leave that $1 donation checkbox marked, so that we can continue to make a difference in our community!

Written by: Keisha Colon