Faustino Somera is among about 15 former Ewa Plantation workers and their spouses who were promised by plantation bosses, and later the city, that they could stay in their Varona Village homes until they died.
But in the nearly two decades since the promises were made, little else has been done to maintain what many call the place that time forgot, or to make sure the homes there are available to former sugar workers as planned.
There are plans now in the works for change.
Nestled at the western edge of Ewa Villages, its remoteness is obvious. It sometimes takes 10 to 20 minutes to see a car pass through one of its lonely streets. A home with a perfectly manicured garden sometimes stands next to a shuttered and condemned house with a weed-laden yard.
Varona is one of the Ewa Villages that were built by the Ewa Plantation Co. as housing for its sugar workers in the early 1920s. When Oahu Sugar, its successor, shut down in 1995, the city acquired the homes. The city promised to develop Tenney, Renton and Varona villages and make them available to the sugar workers. While Renton and Tenney were redeveloped and, largely, sold back to plantation workers, Varona has remained the same.
Somera, 72, not only cares for his own yard, but maintains the vacant land adjoining his at the end of Manakuke Street, planting trees and shrubs.
"If not for him, this place would be bushes," said youngest daughter Jeannett Tolentino, 38.
Somera and his wife live at the three-bedroom, one-bath house with two adult grandchildren who are attending college.
A harvester for the plantation for 29 years, he pays $57 in rent monthly. But both he and his wife have medical bills, and they pay market rates for electricity and water, leaving little at the end of the month after his monthly retirement check.
Somera said the family lived in neighboring Tenney Village for many years. But when Tenney was redeveloped several decades ago by the city, he was told he could either purchase his improved home at $147,000 or move to Varona where he could continue to rent.
The home has a few plumbing problems, and street light outages are common, but it is livable, the family said.
"They cannot afford to buy outside; they’re on a set income," Tolentino said. "How are they going to move elsewhere? And they don’t want to move. They love it here."
The City Council, at its meeting last week, took two actions related to Varona:
» Passed Resolution 13-114, which sets the stage for a Varona Village working group to look at the short- and long-term housing needs of residents there, as well the future disposition of the area.
» Included $500,000 in the city’s capital improvements budget that will go toward immediate repairs at Varona.
Ewa-area Council members Ron Menor and Kymberly Pine said the city’s management of Varona has been shoddy since the Ewa Villages scandal of the late 1990s. Former city housing official Michael Kahapea was imprisoned after being found guilty in August 2000 of masterminding a scam that stole $5.6 million from the city’s Ewa Villages redevelopment fund.
Meanwhile, after Renton, Tenney and other villages were renovated, Varona was left largely untouched.
Abelardo Balala, 74, another Varona resident, told the Star-Advertiser he’s certain that if it weren’t for the Kahapea scandal, Varona residents could have used the cash stolen to purchase their homes at below market price, and their houses and the neighborhood would be fixed up by now.
"Kahapea steal ’em," said Balala, who worked as a payloader operator for the plantation for 25 years and lives in his home with his wife and a daughter.
After a recent tour of homes there, Menor said at a May 16 Council committee meeting, "What I found were conditions that were substandard and totally unacceptable."
Many houses did not appear to meet existing city building codes, and some contained health hazards such as leaky roofs near electrical sources, he said.
Pine said, "The city would never allow a landlord to let any tenant live in unacceptable conditions." The resolution would help solve that concern, she added.
City Chief Engineer Ross Sasamura, city director of facility maintenance, said that after a recent home-by-home inspection by city officials, only one home was found to be in need of an immediate repair — a house with a leaky roof, Sasamura said.
"Other than that, there wasn’t any glaring house safety issues that were noted by the property manager," he said. If any Varona homes were found to be an immediate danger for their occupants, the city would have relocated the families to other parts of Ewa Villages, Sasamura said.
"We are scheduling a more in-depth property inspection to assess the structural conditions, electrical and other systems in the houses that may pose life, health and safety issues," he said.
Any dangerous situations that are found then could also lead to relocations, Sasamura said.
Among the homes that likely will need repairs is that of 82-year-old Marciana Viloria, whose late husband, Juan Viloria, was a laborer.
Fely Bailey, 61, who recently returned home from the mainland to care for her mother, showed the Star-Advertiser a leaky roof, broken wooden doors and a bathroom sink that is out of commission.
"We brush our teeth in the kitchen," she said.
Bailey noted that some nephews recently installed tiling in the home at the family’s expense.
Sasamura said the administration of Mayor Kirk Caldwell had begun steps to improve the situation at Varona even before the resolution was passed. Roads in the neighborhood were paved with asphalt last month as part of the city’s $100 million repaving project for the 2013 fiscal year, and the Department of Environmental Services is working on sewer improvements for the homes.
Besides the tenants of record, there are about 30 other households in Varona rented by families at market rent on a month-to-month basis who can be removed at any time, Sasamura said.
No squatters were found among the homes, he said.
Sasamura said it’s clear the city agreed to allow Varona residents to continue living in their homes for as long as they wanted at below market rates. "That isn’t going to change," he said. "Even in a case where there were some type of defect or other issue with a home they were presently living in and we needed to relocate them … it’s not my understanding that rent would change."
As for the long-term future of Varona Village, that will be up to the task force.
Dolores Suniga, 84, said she recalls being told that the tenants could purchase their homes for $1. Her son, who turns 60 this year, has lived there his entire life. Her late husband, Felelino, was a laborer for the plantation. Suniga said leaks recently developed in the roof above her bedroom and her living room. She’s pleased that city officials recently came by to see what improvements needed to be done.
A Varona resident since 1954, Suniga said she has no intention of moving.
"I’ve been here practically all my life," she said. "I love it here! I want to kick the bucket here!"
Sasamura said he has also heard claims from residents saying there was a promise to sell them their homes for a dollar. "We need to look into that further."
