When the YWCA abruptly announced termination of the Laniakea Health & Wellness program, it unleashed a passionate response from members who are deeply committed to the program and the historic Laniakea property, located on Richards Street, in the Capitol district. We formed an ad hoc group Save Health And Fitness at the Y (hiborg35.wixsite.com/saveourhealth). We believe the program can be viable and self-sustaining, and are willing to work with the board and management as a volunteer, auxiliary group to make it happen.

The board and management can either tap this energy and commitment, built over decades and generations, or lose it. Once lost, it may never be rebuilt. For example, when the heater and pump for the pool broke around 2010, a senior member of the program paid about $20,000 to repair it. Also, the goodwill built by generations of Health & Wellness members has benefited the Y in soliciting grants for operations and maintenance of the physical plant.

Management cites financial reasons for terminating the program, which is funded solely by participants’ fees and/or their health insurance providers. The Y does not consider Health & Wellness to be a core program. Few, if any, of the Y’s core programs would be self-sustaining without grants and/or contracts from government agencies.

In the three years prior to 2024, the Y received $10.67 million from such taxpayer-funded sources. The Y receives additional income from rent charged to a publicly-funded charter school, by leasing Café Julia to its operator, and from rent charged for hosting events such as the 174 weddings, fundraisers and meetings scheduled this year.

We do not seek to diminish funding for core programs. Yet the Y’s larger financial problem is the substantial deterioration of the historic Laniakea building’s infrastructure, largely due to deferred maintenance. Built in 1927, Laniakea’s concrete foundation is spalling, caused by drainage from hard surfaces such as the courtyard and planters. Its 4-inch water supply line is corroded — probably the original. Without a major capital fundraising campaign, no program will be able to operate from Laniakea, which is also the headquarters of YWCA Oahu. The Y has not communicated this information to its members or the public.

For the sake of Laniakea and the Y’s core programs, it is time to save this cherished part of our shared social and architectural history. Let us begin with a volunteer auxiliary and a capital fund drive. And by continuing Health & Wellness members’ access to at least the pool and gymnasium.

Without the Health & Wellness program, the public will have no regular access to historic Laniakea. This will be a terrible loss to members, the greater Honolulu community and to the long-term support of the YWCA.

Janis Fenton, lead coordinator of Save Health and Fitness at the Y, has been a member of the YWCA and its Laniakea Health & Wellness program for 20-plus years.