If Del Monte Fresh Produce workers are evicted from the company's Kunia Camp when the pineapple plantation ceases operations, state officials want to make sure they can find affordable homes.

The Senate Committee on Commerce, Consumer Protection and Housing moved a bill yesterday that would provide loans, grants, rental assistance and other aid to the 600 or so workers who will lose their jobs when the plantation closes in late 2008.

Kunia Camp is home to 140 plantation families. If the camp is demolished or its tenants evicted, more than 500 people could be left scrambling for housing.

Gov. Linda Lingle said that she had not yet read the Senate bill, but that her administration is committed to making sure the pineapple workers have a place to live.

"We cannot have another several hundred families looking for housing in a market that already doesn't have housing. We just cannot allow it," Lingle said. "We just cannot allow it."

TESTIMONY DELIVERED

The only people present to testify at the Senate committee meeting were Bob Bevacqua, a resident of Kunia Camp who was laid off as Del Monte agricultural superintendent last month, and officials of the Housing and Community Development Corporation of Hawai'i and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, which represents the Del Monte workers.

The Del Monte employees themselves were busy working or negotiating with the company over details of the plantation shutdown.

"One of the things they're trying to do is get the company to agree not to evict anybody and maintain the repairs on the homes," said Joanne Kealoha, social services coordinator for ILWU Local 142. "We don't know how successful that's going to be."

Campbell Estate, which owns the land that Kunia Camp sits on, has been open to finding a solution that will prevent the tenants from being evicted, Kealoha said.

A SAFETY NET

The bill introduced by Sen. Ron Menor, D-17th (Mililani, Waipi'o), would provide a safety net for the pineapple workers should they find themselves unemployed and facing homelessness.

As introduced, the bill would create a revolving fund specifically to help the pineapple workers with their housing needs.

However, Janice Takahashi, chief planner for HCDCH, the state housing agency, told committee members that displaced Del Monte workers would qualify for some of the state's existing programs that assist with buying, renting, repairing or locating affordable homes.

Rather than appropriate funds specifically to help the Del Monte employees, HCDCH recommended creating a housing program to meet the workers' needs within existing state programs.

Marvin Awaya, executive director of the Pacific Housing Assistance Corp., observed in written testimony that the bill could impede statewide affordable-housing programs and projects. "If the Legislature is serious about it, it should appropriate new funds rather than raiding existing affordable-housing funds," he wrote.

With negotiations still under way, there is no way to calculate how much it would cost to provide assistance to the pineapple workers and their families, which could include making costly infrastructure improvements at Kunia Camp.

These figures would be needed within the next couple months if the bill is to be passed this session.

Since Del Monte has told its workers they would still have some kind of employment for two more years, the Legislature has time to work out the details.

"The timing may not be immediate," Kealoha said.

Menor said he hopes to see something passed before the Legislature adjourns in May. "There is no more important or basic need than access to affordable housing," he said.

As the Del Monte workers worry about their jobs, "they should not have to also worry about losing their homes," he said.

Reach Treena Shapiro at tshapiro@honoluluadvertiser.com.