LIHU‘E — Kaua‘i County Council Chairman Kaipo Asing recently voiced his displeasure over the lack of support by county officials and others for the establishment of the HanaMana Healing Center at the former Wong’s Care Home in Kapahi Homesteads. Proponents
LIHU‘E — Kaua‘i County Council Chairman Kaipo Asing recently voiced his displeasure over the lack of support by county officials and others for the establishment of the HanaMana Healing Center at the former Wong’s Care Home in Kapahi Homesteads.
Proponents of the HanaMana Healing Center had proposed to convert the former care home at the end of Kawaihau Road into a center for recovering alcoholics and drug abusers.
Partly citing the lack of specific information about programs and staffing at the proposed facility, members of the Kaua‘i Planning Commission rejected requests from Hans Tangelder, among the leaders for the proposed project, for permits to open the treatment and rehabilitation center.
That decision should not have been made, as a residential treatment facility is sorely needed on Kaua‘i, Asing said during a meeting of the council’s Planning Committee at the historic County Building.
Asing’s comments were made during a presentation on the Kaua‘i Community Drug Response plan by Diane Zachary, president and chief operating officer of the Kaua‘i Planning & Action Alliance. Mayor Bryan J. Baptiste, who initiated the five-year plan, was represented at the meeting by the county’s anti-drug administrator, Roy Nishida.
“I am sorry to say I can’t buy it,” said Asing after Zachary’s explanation on why the proposed HanaMana Center faltered.
She explained the project failed partly because proponents of the project didn’t provide sufficient information about the project and the staffing.
Zachary also said the HanaMana project didn’t draw favor because those pushing the project didn’t sufficiently involve residents and those who are involved in the business of drug treatment and rehabilitation on Kaua‘i in the planning of the project.
Asing said compromises or solutions should have been found, because the group led by Tangelder stepped forward to try to address a key community issue when no other group did.
And when county officials and those in the business of treating recovering alcoholics and drug users became aware of obstacles that surfaced for the group, all involved should have come together to work out remedies, Asing said.
Asing also said that if county officials and others don’t offer more support for other groups that come forward with similar projects, then establishing drug- and alcohol-treatment facilities on Kaua‘i will be difficult and costly.
“Because if that is the case, we won’t have any facilities out there…except for a facility built away from the community,” Asing said.
Such facilities would have to be built from the ground up, a costly proposition for groups or any government agency willing to operate such facilities, Asing said.
Zachary and Dely Sasaki, a program manager with the state Department of Health’s Family Health Services, said a project like HanaMana is very much needed on Kaua‘i. But what that group proposed didn’t meet the requirements, Zachary said.
“I can think of a number of things that happened…that a person working on the facility didn’t necessarily involve the community, so that some of the initial conversation raised more red flags than answered questions,” said Zachary in response to queries from Asing on why the project didn’t move forward.
Tangelder, however, met periodically with community residents, and provided information on his proposed project.
Zachary said there were other reasons the project didn’t move ahead. “There was insufficient information by the person running the program. Questions about staffing; questions about program operations,” she said after the council committee meeting. “It was hard to be supportive.”
Sasaki said the proponents of HanaMana seemingly closed their ears to recommendations from folks on Kaua‘i who are trained to treat people going through drug and alcohol rehabilitation.
For one, “We advised him to set up an advisory group (using folks that helped establish Baptiste’s five-year, drug-response plan),” Sasaki said. But the request fell on death ears, she said.
Councilmembers thanked leaders of various clergy groups proposing to set up residential drug-treatment facilities on Kaua‘i in the future.
And county officials will be sitting down with members of those groups to tell them what is needed to avoid the problems that confronted those who proposed the HanaMana Healing Center, Nishida said.
Doing so is a must, Zachary said. “We certainly need to work carefully with people who set up treatment facilities, and to work with them early so they have a lot of programmatic information and all the licensing requirements,” she said.
Councilman Mel Rapozo said he liked what the five-year plan proposes to do, and stressed that recommendations of the plan should be implemented. But he said he doesn’t want to see the day when councilmembers would be asked to put up additional funds to upgrade the plan.
The war on drugs is serious business, and helping those recover from substance abuse is equally important, Rapozo said.
To help recovering substance abusers, county officials may want to go along with a proposal by Councilman Jay Furfaro to float a bond to build a county facility even if it only consists of one, two or three beds, Rapozo said.
“The (county’s drug-response) plan is good. Now comes the hard part — funding and implementation,” Rapozo said.
Nishida also praised Baptiste for pushing through with the drug-response plan, saying “he deserved all the credit.”
Lester Chang, staff writer, may be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 225) or lchang@pulitzer.net.
