Wai’anae, HI

November 19, 2015

Each morning, 19 year old Adam Naki has something to do. On weekdays, she has to haul her own water to the Waianae Boat Harbor to make sure she can wash dishes, have drinking water, and shower. Another chore she has to do is make sure her generator is working in order to get electricity to charge her fan, and other electric appliances.

The reason Adam has to deal with these small domestic labors, is because she is one of 3.5 million homeless in the world.

For the state of Hawai’i, at least 6,300 people are homeless on any given day. Though their reasons may vary; i.e. unemployment, high cost of living, one thing is certain- they do not have a permanent residence. Adam herself has moved 12 times before finally settling at Hale ‘A’Ole in Waianae.

Hale ‘A’ole translates to “without home” from the Hawaiian word ‘Hale’ which means home, and ‘‘A’ole’, which means “no”. Currently, the land that is being occupied by the Hale ‘A’ole members is owned by the Department of Land and Natural Resources.

While being homeless wasn’t what they had planned, residents believe it’s a good place.

“This community needs to be united to function well...living in this community...coming together...everybody has to get along,” said Adam Naki.

According to National Alliance to End Homelessness, Hawaii has the highest number of homeless people relative to their population. It’s an issue that has divided the state for a while now.

“There’s not enough Section 8 vouchers, there’s not enough public housing units, there’s not enough low cost rentals out there. So people are just cycling back, either they’re back homeless, back in the shelter,” said District 21 State Senator Maile Shimabukuro.

“One of the things we’re looking at really is trying to support people transitioning off the streets and beaches and directly into housing.” said State Homeless Coordinator Scott Morishige.

“The government cannot do this alone, this really requires a unified community approach. I think that’s how we can bring our different resources together to address this issue that’s facing our state.”

For everyone at the state, these solutions are still a work in progress. In the meantime, Hale ‘A’Ole is doing what they see fit.

“To me, you gotta set morals out here. It’s no different than being in a house.” said Hale ‘A’ole community leader, Twinkle Borge.

Until the nation can come to a consensus on addressing homelessness, Hale ‘A’Ole remains a safe haven for those with no place to go. For now, this is Adam’s place somewhere she can temporarily call home.

“How you know if it’s home is if it’s your sanctuary, if you feel that you’re want to be there.” said Adam.

Wai'anae, Hawai'i
October 28th, 2013 - Wai'anae, Hawaii

Hawaii is home to over 7,500 farms, covering over one million acres. On a few of these acres sits Maili Moa, or Maili Chicken. They’re an egg farm on the Leeward Coast of Oahu who’ve been rolling out their product for almost two decades. The owner, Mark Takaki, is all about quality and control on his farm. “Quality control is so important to us here, which is why everything we do is all hands on. It keeps things regulated and just gives us a better egg for our customers,” said Takaki.

A lot of work takes place to get these eggs from the chicken to the customers. Everyday, eggs on the farm are washed, sized, graded, and the packaged. Some will be delivered to customers who subscribe to monthly deliveries while others will be packaged for sale on the farm. Regardless of destination, the process and care of the eggs is always the same.

Providing the consistent service and product isn’t cheap though. Hawaii does not have a feed mill, so it has to be flown in for an enormous cost, which left Maili Moa scrambling to make ends meet. Takaki said, “Feed prices went through the roof overnight and basically we needed to downsize because we couldn’t compete with the mainland eggs coming in so cheap.”

Still, this didn’t keep the chickens on the farm from cheeping. To ensure their survival, the farm separated themselves from the flock and switched to producing cage-free eggs. Takaki is the only farmer in Hawaii who has made the switch, and the difference really shows. “I enjoy when my customers come and they really say, ‘We don’t wanna buy from the mainland, we prefer your eggs, your eggs are the best,” Takaki said.

For now, Mark is still trying to get the word out about what he and his farm are doing, and what it could do for Hawaii.

Wai'anae, Hawai'i
October 25th, 2013 - Wai'anae, Hawaii

It started with a jump. The stadium lights blinding, the cheers deafening and the coaches on the edge of sanity. Chaz Bollig goes for the ball, which is a little too far- so he springs into the air. Catch! Then suddenly...nothing. In the game of football, the chances of sustaining an injury are fairly high.

Take Varsity football player Chaz Bollig, for example. In the past few years, he’s broken his collarbone, knee, seven fingers and in pop warner season had an intense concussion. Injuries like these are all too common among student athletes now, with over 2 million occuring each year, according to U.S. Center for Disease Control. For Bolig. one affliction in particular stood out. “I lost memory for a long time after my concussion. I think it was for about a whole week, maybe even longer. It was scary, I had no clue what happened or anything,” Chaz said.

A concussion is a brain injury that occurs from a serious hit to the head or body. Of the 2 million student athlete injuries that do occur, 300,000 of them are traumatic brain-related. Chaz recovered from his injury slowly, eventually returning to the field to play once again.

In Hawaii it takes a student athlete 23 days on average to be cleared to play a sport again. Even with recovery time and new studies being done regarding the effects of concussions, The Department of Education has had an increase of 600 reported injuries from the 2007 to the 2012 school year. This jump in accidents has caused concern among sports officials and athlete's parents. "You don't want to think of the death part, it's just more of how is going to be after he recovers or even if he recovers," said Randell Bollig.

On a global scale, the recognition of concussions and its harmful effects on athletes during sports season has arisen. For instance, the NFL has been sued by more than hundreds of their players or the player’s families because of wounds that cut too deep to mend. "Trainers always try to take it pretty serious and try to make sure you don't have a concussion," said Chaz Bollig.

Overall, many adolescent sportsmen and sportswomen from across the nation are encountering numerous injuries difficult to bounce back from. Whether the blame can be pushed on the athlete or the sport, cannot be determined.

Wai'anae, Hawai'i
Emil Muroka lives for the catch. He gets up at 8am and is out the door with his fishing gear in tow, ready to spend countless hours at his favorite fishing spot.

“I fish for passion, I fish for excitement, I fish for my own joy,” said senior Emil Muroka. As a recreational fisherman, Emil fishes as a hobby and a way to keep busy during his free time. Others, like Eileen Bebeau, have a different reason.

“It started out recreational and you kinda get hooked on it so we do it quite often now commercially and we supply the market in this area,” said commercial fisher Eileen Bebeau. Both Emil and Eileen rely on fishing, something that might not be around in the next thirty years.

According to The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, more than 3/4 of the world’s fish stocks are overexploited. This overexploitation creates countless changes to the ocean’s environment, as well as those who fish in it.

Bebeau said, ”there is a difference when we fish, it’s already showed a decline from 30 years ago. We used to catch 6-7 ahi in a couple hours fishing close to shore and you can’t do that anymore."

In thirty more years, the changes will follow the same trend unless something is done to cut the line of overfishing. If nothing is done to balance the ocean’s sensitive environment, the world’s fish stocks will be depleted by 2048, according to a journal in Science Magazine. The drastic changes from thirty years ago give fishers an idea of what thirty more years of overexploiting fish populations could do.

“If I couldn’t fish anymore, I don’t know what I would do. It’s something I can’t even imagine. I would be lost.” said Muraoka. The instability of the ocean’s future causes concern but it does not have to be a fear of the unknown.

Department of Land and Natural Resources Director WIlliam Aila said, “What you wanna do is manage the amount of fish that get taken out in a relative ratio so that balance continues to exist. When you have balance, you’re not overharvesting and the environment is at its optimum potential.”

As the scales of the fish population are balanced, fishing as a lifestyle, or even a hobby, becomes more secured.

Wai'anae, Hawai'i
October 28th, 2013

Sweaty, smiling and ready for business, this is how Mark Suiso picks his mangoes. Suiso’s formal title is a banker, but he is a farmer at heart.

“I have a day job, I work at a bank, but by night and by passion I have my mango tree,” Suiso said.

Suiso owns the Makaha Mango farm, which is one of the last remaining local farms in Wai’anae. The farm was passed down from his grandfather, to his father, and not to him. To be sustainable, means to consume less than needed and conserve intake of food and maintain steady produce. “I hear a lot of people talking about sustainability, but I see rarely very few people doing anything constructively about it,” Suiso said.

In Hawaii, a majority of groceries are imported from the mainland. In 2008 it cost Hawaii $6,349 to ship imported foods. Hawaii ranks 42nd nationally for total agricultural sales within the United States. As recent as forty years ago sustainability was simply a way of life in Hawaii. “There were dairies up Waianae valley road, you know they had local farms,” Waianae Store owner Kris Okimoto said.

With the growth of the population and big business, demand for imported goods took up more shelves in the store, pushing out locally grown food. Locals are concerned about food being shipped from the mainland and how it effects local crops and business. “I do think it’s taking away from the economy in Hawaii, I believe that they should buy locally and support our local farmers,” said Hawaii resident Katherine Ikehara.

Imported goods are fueling Hawaii’s shift to unsustainable options as the state depends more on imports than home grown development. “For Hawaii to be sustainable we just don’t have enough farmland. We don’t have enough people to work the farms,” said Okimoto.

Sustainability comes at a cost. “I think there was a pricing worn milk, where legislation got involved and they said basically, they told the farmers, you know you can only sell milk for this price,” said Okimoto.

Which cripples Hawaii’s farming. With sustainability Hawaii residents will go from the grocery store to their yards, making it a much greener state. “Picking groceries from your yard instead of groceries from the store. That gives you a strong feeling that you are gonna be independent,” said Mark.