RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act of 1920, as amended (Hawaiian Homes Commission Act), provides for the rehabilitation of Hawaiian people with fifty per cent or more Hawaiian blood; and

WHEREAS, the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act provided 209,000 acres of dedicated land to achieve the intent of the Act; and

WHEREAS, while the United States Congress has oversight of the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act, the administration and daily operations of the program are managed by the State of Hawaii Department of Hawaiian Home Lands and its nine-member commission; and

WHEREAS, the emphasis in the early years of the program was to rehabilitate native Hawaiian beneficiaries of the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act by awarding leases to parcels of land for residential, agricultural, and pastoral purposes; and

WHEREAS, the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands has awarded over seven thousand residential leases to native Hawaiians since the beginning of the program; and

WHEREAS, the intent of the author of the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act, Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalanianaole, was to not only return the native Hawaiians to the land from which they had been alienated, but to help provide the means whereby the Hawaiian ohana, in the largest sense of the word--the ohana of family and community--could come together and thus begin the healing of a people; and

WHEREAS, a "piko", or center, or a place in the community is vital to that reconnection; and

WHEREAS, a majority of existing homestead communities lack a center that can provide the impetus for families to gather, to celebrate, to commemorate, to support, and to further build a capacity for self-determination and self-governance; now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the House of Representatives of the Twenty-third Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2006, the Senate concurring, that the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands is requested to support the development and funding of community and youth centers in Hawaiian homestead communities with private, county, state, and federal funding; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands is urged to assist and partner with Homestead Community Associations in securing land, funds, and resources to build these community centers designed to fit the vision and needs of the particular community; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Concurrent Resolution be transmitted to the President of the United States, the President of the United States Senate, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, each member of Hawaii's congressional delegation, the Secretary of the Interior, the Chairperson of the Hawaiian Homes Commission, the Commissioners of the Hawaiian Homes Commission, and the Governor of the State of Hawaii.

Report Title:

Hawaiian Home Lands; Community and Youth Centers