Care home workers
hole up in Hawaii KaiThe two managers refuse
to leave and intend to ask
the court to allow them to stay
Two Arc in Hawaii care home managers locked themselves inside their residence for several hours yesterday, refusing to leave the Hawaii Kai home where they have spent 11 years caring for five mentally disabled adults.
At 7 a.m. Chandra and Kalani Kanehailua said two Arc employees ordered them out of the home, where the Kanehailuas also live with their two sons, by 3 p.m.
The Kanehailuas refused to leave the Arc property, and police said they would not intervene in a landlord-tenant dispute. The Kanehailuas stayed overnight, and said they intended to seek a court injunction today allowing them to stay.
Arc added other managers yesterday to oversee clients in the home, and to keep the Kanehailuas in their personal areas. Arc officials said they would continue trying to evict the Kanehailuas today.
Arc Executive Director Stephen Kula said Chandra Kanehailua was fired for falsifying a time sheet because she and her husband were not at home Aug. 24, though a timesheet claimed otherwise. On that day, say the Kanehailuas, Kalani Kanehailua was rushed to the hospital with a bleeding ulcer, and two fellow Arc employees filled in.
Chandra Kanehailua said it was an oversight that she filled in her time sheet to reflect hours working that night, and forgot to turn in a timesheet for one of the workers who filled in.
Kanehailua and National Healthcare Union Service Employees International Executive Director Richard Zamora said the eviction smacks of retaliation, since Kula was angry with Kanehailua's mother, also an Arc employee, who complained about Kula to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the state Adult Protective Services.
