It’s time to step it up on public housing
Imagine coming home from the hospital and having to be carried up the stairs because the elevators are down in your 16-story building—for the third time this week. How about having to use a portable toilet in your living room because the only bathroom in the home is on the second floor and you are in a wheelchair.
Disabled tenants at Kuhio Park Terrace and Kuhio Homes have to worry every day about meeting their most basic needs, but after years of suffering, they have new hope it’s about to change.
Last week, tenants at KPT and Kuhio Homes filed federal and state class-action lawsuits against the Hawaiʻi Public Housing Authority for its continuous failure to comply with federal laws mandating fair treatment for disabled residents and to remedy the substandard living conditions they are forced to endure every day. After years of neglect, the complexes are so severely deteriorated that the list of horrible conditions is almost endless.
The story about the deterioration of public housing is not new to anyone who lives in Hawaiʻi. Frequent news reports describe deteriorating conditions throughout the HPHA’s housing stock. It is time that we begin to deal more effectively with the challenges before us and provide minimally humane, affordable housing for the residents of our public housing system. There are at least four components of a successful plan to meet that goal.
The first is establishing a stable, quality-oriented management team to lead the HPHA. During the past seven years, the HPHA has had five executive directors—almost the same number of directors it had over the first 50 years of its existence. Without stable management, you will never have positive, long-term change. It‘s time to de-politicize the position.
The second is a commitment by both the legislative and executive branches of government to fund a plan to make the critical capital improvements required by federal, state and county law. Through the years, the state has spent far less than was required to maintain safe and sanitary conditions in many of the HPHA housing projects.
