Each home is 480-square-feet with a kitchen, bathroom and lanai — all furnished by volunteers and community members.
PAHOA (HawaiiNewsNow) – Kupuna in Hawaii Island’s Puna district who are experiencing homelessness got to see their future homes in Pahoa.
HOPE Services Hawaii and HPM Building Supply unveiled the Sacred Heart Affordable Housing Project on Akeakamai Loop, the first permanent affordable rental housing community for kupuna.
Tenants will use housing vouchers, and rents are capped at 30% of their income.
Each home is 480-square-feet with a kitchen, bathroom and lanai — all furnished by volunteers and community members.
“Their intention in creating spaces and places that was healing, that would bring joy, that would make people feel safe,” said HOPE Services Hawaii CEO Brandee Menino. “And if you, after this, you go and listen to their stories of all the things they did, it will just start to make you cry.”
Approximately $2.2 million dollars in funding for the affordable housing project came from community, nonprofit, and business donations.
The Sacred Heart Affordable Housing Project is located on the same 14.5-acre site as HOPE Services Hawaii’s Sacred Heart Shelter, the micro-unit village erected in 2018 to house seniors displaced by the Kīlauea eruption. A third phase is planned.
The 12 units blessed this week are among 159 units the County of Hawaii Office of Housing and Community Development anticipates will be completed this year. An additional 217 units are expected to be ready for occupancy in 2024.
“This is truly a model that can be used for other efforts and programs of the same nature as far as affordable housing is concerned, particularly for transitional homes,” HOPE Services Hawaiʻi Board of Directors President Pete Hoffmann told dozens of attendees of a blessing for the project held Wednesday.
Move-in’s are expected the week of Thanksgiving.
For more information on the affordable housing project, click here.
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