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Kailua-Kona
church provides a
home for homeless
women

The four-bedroom rented
home has been named
Hosanna's House

By Rod Thompson
Star-Bulletin

KAILUA-KONA -- On a street in Kailua-Kona one night in October retired flight attendant Helen Cole met a homeless woman asking for a place to sleep.

"She said it was awful having no bed to sleep in and no place to put her stuff," Cole said.

"I was at a loss as to what to do. I was standing there as she walked off into the dark."

Now Songs of the Children, sponsored by Life Church of Kona, has opened a four-bedroom facility for homeless women known as Hosanna's House. Church member Cole serves as the director.

Cole found the woman she met four months ago. "She's coming in," Cole said.

Life Church pastor Damien Wong said he and others created the home after hearing Cole talk about that October night.

They rented a house as a temporary measure. Now they're seeking donations and grants to buy two houses, one each for men and women.

And they hope other churches will follow their example.

Over the years, as many as a dozen men would seek shelter at the church on any given night.

Wong decided that allowing women to stay at the same time would be a bad mix.

Wong's Life Church on Alii Drive, in the commercial heart of Kailua-Kona, is housed in a partly open-air former restaurant. "It's not a churchy church," Wong said.

Wong never went to seminary. He started attending the church in 1993 at age 37 after a lengthy period of depression capped by the death of his wife.

Within a year, the pastor left and selected Wong to replace him.

He discovered that many of the men he now helps became homeless after an emotional crisis like the one he went through.

"They've been through heavy duty pain and trauma, a divorce, their kid died, their mother died.

"They just check out. They're not necessarily bums," he said.

To avoid troublemakers, the church shelters only men screened by Care-A-Van of the Catholic Church's Office of Social Ministry, he said.

Bradly Noffsinger, 39, is one who passed the screening.

After separating from his wife and two children in Idaho, he came to the Big Island planning to grow noni for a medicinal drink.

But he came with far too little money and now realizes his plans were "unrealistic, really irrational."

He says attending the church has spiritually revived him and living there has stabilized his life.

Homeless women have a range of similar problems, Cole said.

One she knows has a job but can't afford a down payment on an apartment. Another is recovering from substance abuse.

But without a place like Hosanna's House, she'll have to go back to her family -- where every member is a drug dealer, he said.

Mia Ferreira, coordinator for the Care-A-Van program, says it currently serves 341 homeless people in west Hawaii.

But islandwide, the number of homeless is estimated at 3,000.

The Office of Social Ministry has made proposals in the past to create a facility with as many as 100 beds, but met community opposition, she said.

Now she's working with police, businesses, and community groups to create a proposal that the community can accept.