Honolulu Weekly

Since being appointed last month, the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands’ new boss, Kaulana Park, spends much of his time in DHHL’s brand new office building, Hale Kalanianaole, in East Kapolei. It’s a trek from the department’s former downtown headquarters, and Park likes it out here.

“Seventy percent of our beneficiaries live on the west side of Oahu,” he says. “This is where our land base is. We moved out here to be closer to our people.”

Plus, why rent when you can own? Under Park’s predecessor Micah Kane, who stepped down to become a trustee for Kamehameha Schools, and as result of land swaps with other state agencies, DHHL added 1,800 acres of prime, developable land to its holdings of roughly 200,000 acres statewide.

DHHL owns not only its beautiful 45,000 square-foot building (“Yes, that’s koa,” an aide says, pointing to a window casing, “but it’s from our own trees.”), but the land under it as well. This makes DHHL unique among all state departments. But then, it is also the only state department directly created by an act of Congress, the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act of 1921, which was the brainchild of Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalanianaole. Kuhio worked tirelessly for 20 years before his death to restore land to the Hawaiians, and Park is well aware of the prince’s legacy.

“Everything we do is for our founder,” he said. “Kuhio’s vision was to take a dying race, many of whom were in housing situations that, in today’s terms, would be the worst of the worst that’s out there, and put them back on the land, in a healthy, sustainable and self-sufficient lifestyle.”

The prince felt that any Hawaiian who could prove one thirty-second of Hawaiian blood should qualify for a parcel of land. He settled for a 50 percent blood quantum, and a 99-year lease at a dollar a year.

Today, DHHL estimates that there are more than 40,000 people worldwide who qualify for what the department refers to as an “award”–a residential or pastoral lot. Approximately 20,000 remain on the waiting list–a number that hasn’t changed much over the decades. Department staffers point out that in the first 80 years of the Act’s existence, DHHL made 5,800 awards, and that in the last seven years alone they have placed an additional 2,500 Hawaiians on the land–all while several thousand new people apply for awards each week.

Still, controversy around the waiting list dogs the department. For the past few weeks, Kalima v. State of Hawaii, with some 2,700 claimants, has finally had its day in Circuit Court. The suit alleges that between 1959 and 1988, DHHL failed to provide homes in a timely manner. It also questions the department’s leasing of Homestead lands to commercial entities (DHHL recently signed potentially lucrative, 60-year land leases with Target and Safeway stores on parcels they own outside Hilo).

Park says he can’t comment on the case during legal proceedings, but DHHL officials have previously defended the apparent backlog by stating that they have been unable to contact one-third of the people on the list (some, undoubtedly, have died). Park says that commercial land leases offered to non-Hawaiians represent only 2 percent of DHHL lands, stressing that these leases bring much-needed cash to the department–and ultimately to the people.

“Most of the money is used to offset infrastructure costs for our subdivisions,” he said. “What that means for our future homeowners is that…they are only going to pay for the vertical cost [the house itself] of their home, which is why they will be paying $200,000 to $300,000–not half a million.”

But the “vertical cost” can only be acquired by securing a mortgage, which has created a perennial barrier for thousands of potential homesteaders.

“We did a survey, asking beneficiaries why they turned down an award when it came up,” says Park. “Financial reasons were mentioned as a major cause.”

Park says more than 1,000 potential homesteaders are enrolled in debt counseling classes and caseworker assistance programs that DHHL started as a result.

Another source of pride for Park is that his department no longer receives taxpayer money. It’s also been a stabilizing factor during economic tumult.

“Where other (State) departments are laying off people, we can keep our staff and maintain the level of success we’ve had,” he says.

Actually, DHHL still receives $30 million annually from the State, as the result of a one-time, 1995 settlement designed to compensate for decades of underfunding. The money is guaranteed through 2015.

In some important ways, what is happening inside the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands is nothing less than a quiet revolution. Beside the Hilo holdings, the Salvation Army recently broke ground on its Kroc Center on 10 acres of department land in East Kapolei; DHHL is negotiating to lease 67 nearby acres it owns for a shopping center that will “rival Ala Moana Center in retail square footage.” The State of Hawaii, which just a few years ago owned this land, no longer does.

It’s enough to make Park dream a little. Leaning back, looking out on his domain in East Kapolei, he imagines the possibilities.

“Look at Kamehameha Schools–at the success of them, financially,” he muses. “They used to be a lease owner. When they turned that into fee simple, that’s where they grew as a trust. That was the paradigm shift. Will the department do that some day? Who’s to say? Maybe it will. Maybe we’ll become our own self-sufficient Alii trust.”