Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 34, Number 8, 1 August 2017 — GRANTING [ARTICLE]

GRANTING

BYSTERLING WONG Seven months ago, Shaila Taifane was staying in a domestic violence shelter in Honolulu - a single Native Hawaiian mother with a five-year old son,strugglingwith homelessness.

"The odds were against us," she said. "I was in defense mode, beeause I knew that if I failed, I would be failing my ehild." Beginning in the fall of last year, Taifane reeeived a series of breaks, thanks to the help of Hawaiian I— Community Assets (HCA), a housing program funded in part by the Offiee of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA). The program taught her to

manage a monthly budget, rebuild her eredit and aetively save money. And in February, HCA helped her find a rental home. "They helped me piek up the pieees of my life," Taifane said of HCA. "I don't know where I would be without them." Taifane's story offers hope to the many Native Hawaiians who are fighting to make ends meet. The eeonomie statisties for Native Hawaiians are grim. While Native Hawaiians partieipate in the labor foree at higher rates than the state average, Native Hawaiian per eapita ineome is nearly $5,000 less than the state average. In addition, Native Hawaiians use homeless serviees at disproportionate rates, and Native Hawaiian households *

are more than three times as likely as non-Native Hawaiian households to eontain "hidden homeless." Hidden homeless are individuals who would like to move out but don't have the resourees to buy or rent their own plaee. In late June, the OHA Board of Trustees approved $6 million in grants over the next two years to 23 organizations providing a broad

speetrum serviees to Native Hawaiians. Of these funds, $2 million will go to six programs providing housing and ineome serviees. "Our housing and ineome grants as a eollective provide a eomprehensive set of serviees that aim to help improve the eeonomie landseape for Native Hawaiians," said OHA Chief Exeeutive Offieer/Ka Pouhana Kamana'opono Crabbe. "Our ineome grantees help our benefieiaries develop skills to inerease their earning potential beeause the eost of living in Hawai'i is so high that minimum wage isn't enough. Meanwhile, our housing grantees teaeh our benefieiaries to better manage their finanees to put them on a path that starts with seeuring rentals and ean lead eventually to homeownership."

It feels so good to just to have someone who genuinely cares about you, to have someone in your corner rooting for you, saying 'you ean do it.'"