Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 18, Number 10, 1 October 2001 — Transitional programs [ARTICLE]

Transitional programs

We are warriors with felonies, where no employers will hire us. Some of us sell drugs in order to survive and live in this society. Eighty-five percent of the youth and male adults in the state prisons are Polynesian. Why doesn't OHA, with its state funding, have some kind of transitional housing program? Wouldn't this help the "revolving door" in our prisons? Who was Hawai'i's first inmate? Our queen and her soldiers. We are their descendants, their brotherhood of warriors. Today, the parole authorities max out our Ume leaving us no help in any typ>e of certified job training

classes like CDL training, or programs to get us into subsidized housing so that we ean get a good start after being institutionalized all these years. Prisons have been our detox drug program, like the Victory 'Ohana program. When we leave prison as indigents, we have no niee clothes. Can OHA help? We are used to get-ting federal grants. At least the state ean give us some clothes and "gate money." Can OHA show the queen and her people's government some love in this county eouneil and state legislative run island? I bet our lives would change for the better. Isaiah Kini Hālawa