Posted on: Friday, September 17, 2004

EDITORIAL
Hawaiian Homes plan aids entire community

An ambitious new plan to provide thousands of new homes for Native Hawaiians through the Department of Hawaiian Homes is a welcome shift of philosophy that will benefit not only Hawaiians but the entire community as well.

The key to the plan is a cooperative land swap agreement between Hawaiian Homes and the Department of Land and Natural Resources.

The land department had substantial amounts of land ready for development for low-and-moderate income housing but no money to go ahead with projects.

Hawaiian Homes has money, but much of the land it controls lacks the infrastructure needed to get moving.

So a series of land exchanges have been worked out which should allow Hawaiian Homes to offer homestead lots to as many as 3,500 families within the next few years. Additional land swaps should bring the number of potential leases up to 6,000 over the next five years.

If this happens as planned, it will be a huge jump in the pace of putting Hawaiians on their own land.

It is well established that home ownership benefits not only individual families, but the community at large in terms of social and economic stability.

In that sense, this new cooperative effort is a boon for all of Hawai'i.