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![]() Churches unite
Helping the poor and homeless is part of the ministry of any number of Hawaii churches. |
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"It's a wonderful role for the faith-based community," said Lynn Maunakea, executive director of Institute for Human Services. "Providing shelter and food is a real natural bridge between our missions. I'll be glad to help, and I encourage them to take it on."
Church buildings would become transitional housing, giving low-income families time and resources to get back under a permanent roof of their own.
"If you can give folks a chance to live with no expenses for two to three months, they can save up," said C. Kent Coarsey, a national associate with the Family Promise program. "We try to get them back into some livable housing situation. Getting the first and last month's rent for a deposit is a big effort. We try to hook them up with other resources."
Coarsey said the Family Promise model has succeeded in 109 locations, involving more than 3,000 participating churches and more than 100,000 volunteers. He was executive director of a Colorado network and worked as a national associate in California before returning to Hawaii last year when his wife, the Rev. Amy Wake, was called to be associate pastor at First United Methodist Church.
Maunakea said there is less transitional housing available now than in the past, and "I see part of the solution here." The Catholic church still operates the Maililand apartment complex on the Leeward Coast, but a similar Kalihi facility was closed when Honolulu Community College reclaimed the land near Kapalama Stream.
Families would not linger through the day at their host church under the Family Promise plan, Coarsey said. "During the day, families would go to a day center, and that's where showers would be provided. We would provide the beds; they would move from congregation to congregation."
Coarsey said the project needs at least 15 committed churches to work. It would help about 50 families in a year.
In the nationwide networking effort, about half of the people helped into housing have been children, and most were under 6 years of age, according to the nonprofit agency's Web page, www.familypromise.org.
"People don't choose homelessness as a lifestyle," said Coarsey, "and children absolutely never choose to be homeless.
"The key goal is to get congregations involved."