LIHU‘E — The title of the land where the Adolescent Treatment and Healing Center is has been formally offered to the Hawai‘i Health Systems Corporation by the county.
The center, which never became fully operational, broke ground in 2018 to be the first on-island facility of its kind in over two decades, replacing one destroyed by Hurricane ‘Iniki in 1992. Efforts to get it running have been ongoing, but hit a standstill last year when the center was taken over as a COVID-19-isolation facility.
Mayor Derek Kawakami said finalization of legal agreements is ongoing in a Tuesday announcement.
“Identifying a permanent operator for the treatment center has had its challenges, but in partnership with the state, namely Hawai‘i Health Systems Corporation, and its nonprofit partner Kaua‘i Adolescent Treatment Center for Healing, we are pleased to announce a path
forward,” Kawakami said.
Last month, with American Rescue Plan Act funds, the county allocated $200,000 to jumpstart the program. This joins $1.3 million in the state’s fiscal-year 2022 budget that went to the newly formed nonprofit KATCH, which Grove Farm Company formally said would oversee the operations and management of the Ma‘alo Road facility.
The center sits on a 5.8-acre parcel donated by Grove Farm in February 2017 to the County of Kaua‘i “solely for use for adult and adolescent health-care purposes,” unless Grove Farm provided written consent to a change, according to the deed.
“We all have the passion to provide drug-treatment programs to help those struggling in our community, and we are confident that HHSC and KATCH’s expertise are the right addition to the islandwide partnership bringing the late Mayor Bryan Baptiste’s vision of this healing center to life,” Kawakami said. “We look forward to this continued positive collaboration in putting our kids first.”
HHSC and Grove Farm did not provide comment for this story.
In December 2019, the county held a grand opening of the facility. Three months later, the center was taken over by the state’s Department of Health for COVID-19 operations and the original treatment provider was dropped. Last month, the former provider, Hope Treatment Services of O‘ahu, filed a civil complaint in Fifth Circuit Court, citing breach of contract and loss of revenue and profits from the county.
County plans to relocate prosecutor’s office services into the vacant center have been dropped. The center consists of eight bedrooms, recreational space, agricultural capacity and a building for support services with attached classrooms.
“The ATHC’s use as an isolation facility has helped to control disease spread and protect our entire community over the past year and a half,” Kawakami said. “As vaccination rates continue to increase statewide, the Department of Health is working on plans to demobilize the isolation facility.”
The treatment and healing center was a priority for the late Mayor Bryan Baptiste and then-mayor Bernard Carvalho’s administrations. The center’s initial purpose was to provide long-term care and outpatient treatment for adolescents with mental-health or substance-abuse disorders.
Carvalho and fellow County Councilmember KipuKai Kuali‘i have been working with nonprofits and officials in hopes to get the center back to its original mission.
”This vision, which originally began with Mayor Bryan J. Baptiste, could not have come to fruition without the generosity of Grove Farm Company and Warren Haruki, its president and CEO,” Carvalho and Kuali‘i said in a joint statement provided to The Garden Island.
“Grove Farm stepped forward when the county was in need of a parcel that was both serene and conducive to healing, where Kaua‘i’s youth could receive the care that they needed. Grove Farm’s gift of the parcel provided the county with the opportunity to begin the process of developing this much needed center,” the councilmembers said.
