A Healing Place

1997
Comments On Hawaii
Honolulu Weekly, Honolulu Hawaii, 1996:
The Power of Makua: A Healing Place
This is an important piece of contemporary Hawaiian history.
Its also one of the most well documented events in contemporary Hawaiian culture.
I spent some time with the community there reflecting on my Buddhist training. It would have been hard not to. I studied therapeutic communities in college.
What was happening at Makua was not only very Hawaiian, but also very powerful on a contemporary healing level.

Makua is a beautiful beach. Being there is to enter a meditative state, even and serene.

I thought about therapeutic communities I had studied And watched the dolphins and the sunsets. I attended Makua council meetings. I was educated by the
people there. They made me swim the rough currents at Makua and when the time came did the interviews for the article,

There are at least four documentaries about what happened there. The survivor accounts are tremendous. Considering the tremendousy traumatic life
paths that drove them to the isolated beach, they were fantastic.

I learned a lot working with them.

The article itself is reflective of what I was thinking at the time.
There are several errors in the article. They are key. Sparky or “Sparks” Rodrigue’s name appeared as “Skippy.”
I know I did not write it that way.
David Rosa was identified as a veteran of the Viet Nam conflict, when in fact he was veteran of the Korean conflict.

It was the first story I wrote for The Honolulu Weekly.
I met then editor, Christine Whalen at the Maui Writer’s Conference where I had won a prize for my novel, "A Whal's Lament (at not being able to play
trombone.)"
She gave me a shot at the Weekly and personally approved this story. I got the cover. O’ahu is an island filled with great writers. It is very hard to network in
and get published. I am very grateful for her for letting me work.
She let me do stories about the Wai’anae Coast where I lived and let me cover very local issues.
Laurie Carlson, the publisher, also has my eternal gratitude for this.

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Makua Fact Sheet

The following statistics were gathered at Makua Beach by going
from shelter to shelter on February 20-21, 1996. Living there at
that time were 282 people making up 63 households.
Distribution according to age is 59 individuals under 18, 205
were between the ages of 19-55, those 55 and older number 13.

According to race and ethnicity, 233 were Native Hawaiian, 13
were Pacific Islander, 12 were Portuguese, 11 Caucasian, 9
Filipino, 3 Puerto Ricans and 1 Japanese.

Duration of homelessness of the heads of households varied
from 3 who had been homeless for 1 year of less, 23 from 1-5
years and 32 5 years and up.

Sources of income included Social Security, SSI, Welfare,
Veterans Benefits, jobs, and money from family and friends.

Since September of 1996 members of the staff of HCAP
Leeward District Office met weekly with the residents and a
Makua Community Council was organized. The residents had
cleaned up the reef, the beach and a fresh water river bed.

Near the Highway they made efforts to clean up trash that could
not be moved without heavy machinery. However this area was
used by businesses as a dump and families from other parts of
the coasts. Residents and others who visit the beach frequently
witnessed City and County Trucks dumping trash there.

Residents made arrangements with drivers of the City and
County garbage disposal trucks going to Yokohama Bay to pick
up their garbage which they gathered in bags and left in agreed
upon spots on long the Highway. However when the talk of
eviction began it was no longer picked up and the bags were
torn open by animals and the trash spread around.

At the time of the survey HCAP and Time OUt Service, Inc have
joined together to assist the residents of Makua Beach to have a
significant voice in planning and implementing projects that
address the housing, economic, vocational, social and health
needs. Time Out Services has applied for Foundation and Trust
funding to assist residents to meet the following objectives.

The Community was evicted in 1997.