Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 38, Number 8, 1 August 2021 — Helping 'Ohana Progress Toward Eeonomie Stability [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Helping 'Ohana Progress Toward Eeonomie Stability

By Ed Kalama OHA's 15-year Mana i Mauli Ola Strategic Plan calls for strengthening the capability of 'ohana to meet their living needs, including housing, and cultivating eeonomie development in and for Hawaiian communities.

It's not easy to get by or make ends meet in Hawai'i. For many families, just putting food on the table eaeh day is a continuous struggle, and with the cost of housing, living paycheck to paycheck is a reality for far too many of our families and eommunities.

Consider that, according to a 2020 Aloha United Way study on hnaneial hardship, some 42% of Hawai'i's 455,138 households struggle to make ends meet. While 9% of those struggling households live helow the federal poverty level, another 33% are categorized as ALICE households - assets limited, ineome constrained, and employed. Comparatively, among Native Hawaiian households in Hawai'i, 53% - more than half - struggle to make ends meet, either as ALICE households or as households living helow the federal poverty level. The federal poverty level (FPL), or the "poverty line," is an eeonomie measure used to decide whether the ineome level of an individual or family qualifies them for certain federal benefits and programs. The FPL is the amount of annualized ineome earned by a household, helow whieh they would be eligible to receive certain welfare benefits. For a single adult in Hawai'i, the FPL was $13,960 per year in 2018, while the four-person family average was at $28,870. ALICE households earn above the federal poverty line, but do not earn enough to afford basic household necessities. To help address this situation, the OfHce of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) has responded to community input and included eeonomie stability as one of the four strategic directions of its new 15-year Mana i Mauli Ola Strategic Plan. The others are educational pathways, health outcomes and quality housing. These four directions will be used to guide OHA's work to better the conditions of Native Hawaiians. "Eeonomie stability is about being able to provide for your family - and then sustain those conditions. The strategy is to support families and communities in all of

the avenues and options in plaee and to be developed, for ■ a family to sustain itself," said OHA CEO/Ka Pouhana Dr. Sylvia Hussey. "We want to encourage a mindset of provident living - self-reliance, emergency preparedness, long-term planning, prudent resourcing and practices (e.g., don't spend more than you have, recycle, reuse, repurpose), credit management, creating savings accounts and the like." The eeonomie stability direction includes an emphasis on strengthening families' ability to meet living needs, as well as cultivating eeonomie development in and for Native Hawaiian communities by increasing the number of Native Hawaiian-owned businesses, establishing new markets for Native Hawaiian products, and establishing and operationalizing an Indigenous eeonomie system consistent with Hawaiian cultural values. According to U.S. Census data, Native Hawai-ian-owned businesses constitute 11% (13,147) of all businesses in Hawai'i while Native Hawaiians constitute 21% of the state population. "There are business opportunities in Hawaiian eommunities - for Hawaiian communities and by Hawaiian communities. Hawaiians are very prominent in the creative economy, in the film industry and fashion, for example. OHA offers the Native Hawaiian Revolving Loan Fund and Consumer Micro Loan Program that provides capital and access, but more innovatively is to think about how those eeonomie opportunities manifest in our communities," Hussey said. "Can families sustain themselves? Or do they have to get a day job and then eome on the weekend to farm or fish or practice other things? Sometimes we think that's just the way it is, but often, that's not the way they want it. So those are the kinds of opportunities we want to uplift and highlight to make sure that everyone ean make those choices." Kamoa Quitevis is the chief executive oflicer of 'Ainacology, an OHA community partner. He is a major advocate of developing and utilizing a network of Hawai-ian-focused businesses. "One of our components within 'Ainacology is our food service business arm whieh is Kamoa's Kitchen Mea'ai and Mo'olelo. The fundamental aspect of Kamoa's Kitchen is connecting with loeal farmers and other loeal businesses so we build the capacity within our eommunity with like-minded business owners and community organizations so there is a collective movement forward that ties together families, communities and our environment. We partner with all kinds of community organizations. It's the only thing that makes our work viable on a large scale," Quitevis said. Those partnerships include entites like Ka'ala Farms, MA'O Farms, Hoa 'Āina o Mākaha, Ho'oulu 'Āina and even Wai'anae High School where students grow limu manauea (ogo) in a program that supports education SEE HELPI NG 'OHANA PR0GRESS ON PAGE 18

Eeonomie Development

HELPINū 'OHANA PROGRESS Continued from page 4

and home base economics on the Wai'anae Coast. "We've done some excellent projects over the past years with OHA. One of our strong early partners was KUA. They're a Native Hawaiian organization that works with communities to manage fishponds and estuaries and set fishing strategies and management policies," Quitevas said. "They build capacity in those places, it's the Native Hawaiian concept of kūkulu kumahana, or pooling of strengths. It was a

term used to gather the masses to get a certain task or goal accomplished. "We need to continuously look to our ancestors and their wisdom so we ean move toward that reciprocal connection we have between people, our environment and our culture. So the idea of bringing all these groups and organizations and businesses together is fundamentally that - it's kūkulu kumuhana. And when we utilize that in the right way, we'll be able to do anything." ■

■ 4 - Dr. Sylvia Hussey - Photos: Courtesy

HI Kamoa Quitevis