The much-needed and long-planned Kukuiola Emergency Shelter and Assessment Center moved a step closer to fruition Thursday with a groundbreaking and blessing ahead of the start of mass grading of the site in Kailua-Kona.
“It’s been a long time coming and a much-needed community setting for this envisioned community to provide emergency shelter, permanent housing and a supportive community for men and women coming out of homelessness,” said Hawaii County Housing Administrator Susan Kunz. “We appreciate the tireless commitment from everyone involved in this significant project that has led us to today.”
Work will begin soon with mass grading of the 6-acre site and construction of the access road, she said. The state allocated $4 million for the road while the county footed the $2 million bill for the mass grading of the site on the south side of Kealakehe Parkway, across from the West Hawaii Civic Center and adjacent to the proposed Kealakehe Regional Park.
“We are concurrently working on the vertical design of the housing and ancillary buildings based on the feedback and comments we received from the community, the partners, advocates and individuals who have lived experience,” said Kunz.
Once the site is prepared, construction of the first phase of Kukuiola will commence. That first phase, as currently outlined, will include 16 emergency shelter units, a congregate kitchen area, restrooms, parking and other amenities.
Funding for the vertical construction comes via $10 million in federal funding secured by U.S. Sens. Brian Schatz and Mazie Hirono.
“It’s not quite enough (for the whole project), but based on the estimates it should get us through the first phase,” said Kunz.
When completed, Kukuiola will provide a safe and welcoming environment for all who seek assistance in connecting to an emergency shelter, appropriate case management services and permanent housing opportunities. At full buildout, Kukuiola will include 48 permanent housing units, in addition the emergency units, for a total of 64 units.
The groundbreaking and blessing, the second held after the site was blessed in September 2020 before field work got underway, comes the same week as Gov. Josh Green signed an emergency proclamation relating to homelessness.
The intention of the emergency action, according to a statement from Green, was to speed construction of 12 kauhale, or tiny home villages, across the state, including Hawaii Island’s Kukuiola Emergency Shelter and Assessment Center.
“This is the solution,” Green said Thursday. “We won‘t get it right every time but we will try. And what our team expressed was we are going to act compassionately but we’re going to act expeditiously. We signed an emergency proclamation to make sure that we can go forward and, believe me, we will be good caretakers of the aina, we will make sure that we do more to protect our island, more to protect our water while actually helping people but the purpose is not to wait another two, three, 10 years before those thousands of people get help.”
Green, a Big Island democrat and former physician, added that having a roof over one’s head equates to a longer life. According to Green, the average lifespan for a person living on the streets is 53 years in Hawaii.
“However, if you have a roof over your head — whether it’s in a kauhale, a small tiny home, or a fancy home or condo — you live to be 80 in the State of Hawaii, and if you‘re Hawaiian, you‘re twice as likely to be houseless in our state. This is not justice, this is not fair. That’s why we will build and it is our intention right away to see 12 kauhale and we will do as much as we can as quickly as we can to get these projects going,” he said.
The cost to society will also be reduced, Green noted, stating that a drug user given shelter immediately consumes 60% less drugs, and a person is less likely to require hospitalization.
“They will not need to go to the hospital over and over spend $80,000-$90,000 per person, per year. Instead, they will have a home that is built with very little expense but they will be well and they will have their life restored,” Green said.
Hawaii County Mayor Mitch Roth, like others who spoke during Thursday’s groundbreaking and blessing, commended the work of prior administrations and the late Dr. Cliff Kopp and late William “Billy” Kenoi, in bringing Kukuiola to this point. He also thanked Green for the emergency proclamation, which will remove “a lot of red tape” that had been holding the project up.
“Some people think it may go too far, some people may think it doesn’t go far enough, but it is really important what you did,” Roth said of the emergency proclamation. “We’re going to be taking care of our community and that’s everybody. Coming along, we need to act with haste and we need to get things done.”
Roth also noted plans exist to create a kauhale in East Hawaii.
“We are looking at not only doing this on the Kona side, we are talking about doing another one on the Hilo side but on that one, right from the get-go, we are looking at doing a county-state-public-private partnership,” he said. “We all need to be working together, getting rid of silos, moving forward.”