Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2001

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Hawaiian Affairs, to which was referred S.B. No. 878 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to appropriate funds for the implementation of Project Faith.

Testimony in support of the measure was received from the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, Waimanalo Construction Coalition, Hale Omao, and two private citizens.

Your Committee finds that the Hawaiian community of Anahola, Kauai, is seeking a creative, innovative way to revitalize itself through the creation of a Hawaiian commercial cultural center project called Project Faith. Project Faith, as envisioned by the Anahola Homesteaders Council, will develop an economic development and infrastructure master plan to form a community based commercial-cultural center to benefit native Hawaiians who reside on homestead lands in Anahola. The project will help develop solutions to combat high unemployment, social depression, rising elderly population in need of care, and community deterioration.

The expected outcome of Project Faith will be to provide long-term jobs, native business entrepreneurial opportunities, and job training for youths, and enhance cultural relevance and preservation for native Hawaiians. Project goals include the building of a one hundred-bed capacity elderly nursing care facility, a twenty-unit studio apartment facility for independent living for the elderly, an early education and child care facility, a fire station, commercial office space, a cultural pavilion, a post office, and a convenience store.

Your Committee believes that the State should support the efforts of the Anahola Homesteaders Council to revitalize its economy and make Anahola a better place to live and do business.

Your Committee has amended the measure by inserting $125,000 as the amount to be appropriated for Project Faith.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Hawaiian Affairs that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 878, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 878, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.