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By Lee Cataluna
Advertiser Columnist
In roughly the area where the Manoa Marketplace is today, there was a remarkable little public housing project that wasn't around for very long but had a profound effect on many families' lives.
The Manoa War Homes, known as Manoa Housing, was built after World War II for veterans and their families. The idea was to offer veterans a decent, affordable place to live while they found jobs, re-entered civilian life and saved up for a down payment on a permanent home. One-bedroom units went for $35 a month, 2-bedroom units were $42.50. There were close to 1,000 units in the complex, which was built despite protest of area residents concerned about unsavory elements in their neighborhood and potential decline in their property values.
• Sunday, Nov. 14 • 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. • 100th Infantry Battalion Veterans clubhouse 520 Kamoku St. (Free parking at Ala Wai School) • For more information and to order bento lunch: Joyce Chinen 454-4720
The federally funded program worked. Young families got their start there and moved on to purchase their own homes.
Manoa housing reunion planned
Joyce Chinen, a sociologist at West O'ahu College, spent part of her childhood in Manoa Housing. She has pleasant memories of those days, of laundry flapping in the breeze between rain showers, of the manapua man coming through with his baskets, of catching crayfish in Manoa stream.
Chinen sees the story of Manoa Housing as more than nostalgic. She sees it as an opportunity to study public policy and its effects on people's opportunities.
"I'm particularly interested in the oral histories about the trajectory of families' lives because most of us benefitted. We were the beneficiaries," she says.
"The sociological significance of this cannot be overemphasized," Chinen says. With the assurance of this affordable housing, these returning veterans received a critical resource. They had safe and respectable shelter, an address from which to locate jobs, to settle into a daily rhythm of normality in a neighborhood of other young families, to save and build capital for a down payment on a more permanent home."
Manoa Housing opened in 1946 and began closing in 1956. By the end of the dec-ade, the project was pau. Neighbors lost touch.
A mini-reunion of former Manoa Housing residents is planned for next month. It will be a time to share stories and photos, and plan for a more formal reunion. Manoa Housing is long gone, but Chinen is certain the effects of the program live on.
Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.
