By Lee Cataluna
Advertiser Columnist

A year ago, we ran a story about a woman who had turned her life around, pulling herself out of a downward spiral of homelessness, drug addiction, and poverty. At her lowest point, Child Protective Services took Lehua Rosa-Malott's three young children away.

When we talked with her last year, Rosa-Malott was proud of how far she and her family had come. They started 2001 out of the projects and off welfare.

This year, the news is even better. Rosa-Malott, her husband, Bert "Kawika" Malott, and their three young children started 2002 as homeowners. Through the help of the Waimanalo Community Development Corp. and PACT (Parents and Children Together) they were able to purchase a three-bedroom, 1 1/2-bath home in Makaha for $84,000.

"It's a small house on a tiny lot," says Rosa-Malott, "But it's ours. There's a little yard for the kids and an area for me to garden and a garage for my husband to putter in."

"Two and a half years ago I had close to $7,000 in debt. Every year we used our tax refunds to pay off a large debt and then we paid off smaller ones in between."

Once the debt was cleared, the next goal was to save up for a house. Homebuyer education classes and individual development accounts through the two agencies helped with the down payment. As it turned out, owning a home made more financial sense than any of the family's other options.

"Our mortgage payments are like $630 a month," Rosa-Malott said. "We couldn't have found a two-bedroom apartment to rent for that much. If we had stayed on Section 8, our rent would have been in the vicinity of a thousand dollars a month. So for us, it was more practical to buy than to kept renting, even with the Section 8 program.

"It also means we have something to leave our children. My next thing now is life insurance."

Rosa-Malott singles out two people in particular who helped her family reach its goal: Greg Field, who teaches the homebuyer's class as WCDC; and Dwayne Morris, a Realtor with Coldwell Banker Pacific.

"One of the things about buying in that price range is that when you talk to a real estate agent, they don't want to bother with you because they're not going to make enough money on it. Dwayne was awesome. ... Buying a house is so stressful, but about halfway through I realized I could stop worrying because Dwayne was doing all the worrying for me."

But most of all, the credit for the family's success is their own.

"It wasn't like it was something that just happened. We made this happen."

As young as they are, her three children, 7-year-old Kepa, 5-year-old Hoku and 3-year-old Koa, did their part.

"They were part of the planning process in buying the house," Rosa-Malott said. "We all sat down and said, you know, if we try to buy a house, then there will be sacrifices. We don't go out if it costs money. We don't buy clothes, we get secondhand clothes from the cousins. McDonald's once a month was a big splurge.

"It's not like we did without things. Everyone had the necessities, and I have wonderful in-laws who are very supportive, so the kids always had lots of Christmas presents and stuff. But we were just very conscious of how we spent money. My husband had an allowance, which he hated. But he did it.

"We didn't go out to a nice restaurant like — I can't even think of a good restaurant, it's been so long. But it's just as much fun to have a barbecue in your back yard if the yard is yours. I'd rather do that than go to the finest restaurant in the state."

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays , Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.