For many Kauaians, it has become the norm to try to tap into the thriving prosperity of the island brought on by a surging tourism trade. Jobs, new four-wheel vehicles, shopping. But not Donald Kagawa, Betty Nobria and John Compton.
For many Kauaians, it has become the norm to try to tap into the thriving
prosperity of the island brought on by a surging tourism trade. Jobs, new
four-wheel vehicles, shopping.
But not Donald Kagawa, Betty Nobria and John
Compton. They are among the homeless who live with their children and all their
worldly possessions at Kauai’s beaches and parks.
But they aren’t ashamed
of their current situations. They say they like “outdoor living.”
They are
down on their luck, and all say living the way the do allows them to catch
their breaths, take stock of where they have been in life and plan for a
brighter future.
Until Sept. 30, Nobria, her husband, Herman, and three
small children had been living in the same Wailua home for more than five
years. They had to move out because the owner wanted the use of the home for
her children.
Since then, the family has camped throughout the island but
spends most of their time at Hanama’ulu Beach Park. To stay at beach parks,
Nobria said she secures county camping permits – which are good for seven days
– a week in advance.
They stow all their cooking equipment, clothes,
blankets and toys for the children in the hold of a 1988 Chevy Astro
van.
At night, Nobria and her husband sleep in the van and their children
sleep in a tent that is pitched just outside an open van door. Their other
belongings are stored in another tent.
If the Nobria family stays at
Hanama’ulu Beach Park, they must break camp before each Wednesday, when Kaua’i
County work crews clean up the beach.
“We don’t like to live like this, but
we don’t have a choice at this time,” she said.
The family has lived at
the beach for the past 20 days. Initially, Nobria was depressed, but “I got
over it,” she said.
After she drives her husband, a construction worker,
to work, she takes two of her children to King Kaumuali’i School in Hanama’ulu
and takes care of the other child until it is time to pick up her children
from school.
Nobria said she is tired of renting and hopes to save enough
for a down payment for a low-interest loan to buy a home.
“Until we do
that, we are going to be camping out,” she said.
Kagawa, 57, moved to a
park bench on a lawn in front of the historic county building a month ago after
he was forced to move out of his daughter’s home on the island earlier this
year.
She had fallen into bad economic times and could no longer afford to
rent the home, and Kagawa began living at Peter Rayno Park and in front of the
county building. He gets about town by riding a bicycle.
Earlier this week,
he said, Mayor Maryanne Kusaka told him to consolidate his personal belongings
– food, cooking equipment, coolers with food, clothes, magazines and boxes
containing other items.
Kusaka called on Kagawa because she was concerned
about his health and safety, said Kaui Tanaka, Kusaka’s administrative aide.
Kagawa could be removed from the park and be charged with trespassing on
public property if someone files a complaint, according to the Kaua’i Police
department. But no one has so far.
Kagawa, a non-practicing attorney, said
he can stay at the park as long as he likes because “technically, I am not
camping. I haven’t set up a structure like a tent.”
Kagawa said he lives
the way he does because he has little money and has no place else, although
family members have offered to put them up at their homes.
Kagawa once led
what many would consider a regular life. He graduated from the University of
Hawai’i with a business degree in 1968 and received a jurisdoctorate degree in
law from the prestigious Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash. in 1973.
He
worked as an attorney for Honolulu attorney David Schutter, one of the state’s
top attorneys. Schutter specialized in criminal law and personal injury
cases.
Kagawa specialized in the same type of law work, came to Kaua’i and
ran his own law practice from 1975 to 1979. He said he worked 50 cases and
never lost one. He also represented poor people at no charge.
Life looked
bright. He had status in the community, a home, a wife and two
children.
But his life changed when he got a divorce, he said, leaving him
in a depressed state for a time and then prompting him to change his
life.
He quit lawyering, and although he is still licensed to practice law
in Hawai’i, he has gone on to other work. Starting in 1980, he was a carpenter
for 13 years. He said he worked on some of the biggest projects on the island,
including renovation work at Waimea High School, the Sheraton Kaua’i Hotel in
Po’ipu and the Kaua’i Hilton at Nukolii, now the Radisson Kaua’i Beach
Resort.
But his work as a carpenter ended, he said, after he hurt his back
on a job. He said he received an injury settlement later.
After 1993, he
worked as a commercial shoreline fisherman and a substitute
teacher.
Kagawa, who remarried but got a divorce he says he never recovered
from, said he had the life of comfort, and the current life he leads is part of
life’s process.
“Life is a wonderful adventure,” he said. “I would be bored
just being an attorney or just a carpenter. You have to move onto different
things.”
Kagawa said he doesn’t feel homeless.
“Being homeless is just
semantics,” he said. “This island is my home. Anywhere I stay on the island is
my home.”
Compton feels the same away about living at Hanama’ulu Beach
Park, where up to 50 people, including homeless ones, camp out.
Up until
June of this year, Compton said, he had lived at the home of his sister, but
had to move out after she fell into financial difficulty.
Because he has no
savings or enough money to pay for a rental unit that suited him, camping at
the beach became Compton’s best option.
“I am not ashamed to be here at
this place,” he said. “I am not robbing, stealing or hurting
anyone.”
Living at the beach park, he said, is almost like living at a
resort. He pitched his tent on the bank of the Hanama’ulu Stream. At a campsite
surrounded by trees, he entertains friends, rests on a beach chair and smokes
cigarettes, listens to chirping birds and gazes out at Hanama’ulu Bay. An ocean
breeze keeps the heat of the day at bay.
Compton drives a car, lives on
food stamps and gets medical care via the state Department of Health.
“When
I get up in the morning, it is no longer a matter of having to do things I
don’t want to do,” Compton said. “It is a matter of doing what I decide to
do.”
Compton said he sold automobiles at car dealerships in California,
O’ahu and Kaua’i for 30 years, retiring in 1996. During those years, he sold
and leased vehicles and managed sales teams for Cal Worthington, one of the
largest car dealerships in California.
Compton was born on O’ahu and lived
there 10 years before he moved to California for the next 25 years, he said. He
moved to Kaua’i in 1984 to be close to relatives.
At the moment, he has no
plans to leave the beach.
“I am going to take it one day at a time,”
Compton said. “I am living in paradise.”
Staff writer Lester Chang can
be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 225) and lchang@pulitzer.net
