Misinformation, misunderstandings and change for residents at Kuhio Park Terrace have led to heartbreak, fear and resistance over their ongoing relocation to make way for renovations at the public housing complex in Kalihi.

Kuhio Park Terrace, or KPT, as it is commonly known, was built in 1965 to provide homes for low- income families, many of whom are non-English speaking immigrants.

The state’s Hawaii Public Housing Authority has started relocating some of them ahead of the first phase of renovations to modernize outdated buildings and outdoor areas, which has led to residents’ concerns about where they’ll end up next.

Some tenants disagree with the agency’s position that its relocation team, The Michaels Organization, has offered them equivalent housing and adequate accessibility for elderly and disabled residents.

Residents who live outside of the first phase of renovations are hearing rumors and complaints from Phase 1 tenants, causing confusion and fear about their future moves and how it might affect their families. Most hope to stay in Kalihi, but some of their Phase 1 neighbors say they’ve been offered units as far away as Waianae and Kapolei.

For some, moving away from Kalihi would mean switching schools, doctors and jobs.

The housing authority hopes to move all Phase 1 residents living in the first 60 units within a couple weeks, but some of them have protested and have yet to leave.

The first phase would renovate old units and add new ones, for a total of 304 mixed-income, affordable apartments estimated at a total cost of $212 million. The agency hopes to have Phase 1 completed and ready for both current and new tenants to move in by late 2026.

In an email to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, the agency said the project will mean “saving taxpayers millions of dollars that would otherwise be spent on costly repairs to outdated, deteriorating units.”

‘The bigger picture’

A group of residents reached out to their state legislators, Sen. Michelle Kidani (D, Mililani Town-Waipio Gentry-Royal Kunia) and Rep. Ikaika Olds (D, Moiliili-McCully) for help with relocation. The lawmakers then emailed questions addressing their concerns to the housing authority.

A handful of KPT residents also showed up at the state Capitol for this year’s opening day of the Legislature to draw public attention to what’s happening.

Lehua Willets, 37, a lifelong KPT resident, worries about her three daughters. She’s among the first tenants to move and said she was offered housing in Ewa Beach, Waianae and Kapolei that she doesn’t want. For Willets, moving from town to the west side of Oahu would mean starting over without her family’s usual community resources.

“I personally was worried about our clinics, our schools and the way that they’re pushing us out of Kalihi,” she said, standing with the group in the Capitol rotunda.

Living outside of Kalihi would mean “losing work hours all while reapplying to new school & clinics,” she wrote in a follow-up text to the Star-Advertiser. Willets said she can’t afford to bring in less income because “I’m a single parent, I’m their only source of income.”

Hakim Ouansafi, Hawaii Public Housing Authority executive director, wants tenants to live in newly renovated or newly built apartments to provide better living conditions, while helping to clear the backlog of low-income people waiting for public housing.

“We are expanding access to affordable housing,” Ouansafi said during a video call with the Star-Advertiser. “We are enhancing economic opportunity. We are ensuring a suitable living environment.”

Ouansafi hopes current residents understand the bigger picture.

“I want our tenants to welcome others who are not as privileged and fortunate as them,” Ouansafi said.

The agency acknowledges that many families are unhappy with the move and has promised, in writing, that residents in “good standing” on their lease agreements can move back into a renovated unit after redevelopment.

Ouansafi said he sympathizes with them. When he took over the housing authority 13 years ago, Ouansafi lived in Mayor Wright Homes for three months “just so I could live there and understand their concerns,” he said.

Less-than-ideal options

KPT residents say the upcoming moves also have been stressful on their children, who are anxious having to make new friends at new schools.

“The friends they’re already close to and already have long-lived memories with will be out of touch,” Willets said.

Dynasty Kaisa, 13, the middle daughter among Willets’ three daughters, has one year left at Sanford B. Dole Middle School and doesn’t want to start over for the eighth grade.

“All I have is one more year until I go to Farrington (High School),” Dynasty told the Star-Advertiser at one of the Thursday demonstrations residents hold weekly on School Street. “I’ll be fine, as long as we don’t have to move and go to a different school and have to restart everything.”

Dynasty’s 5-year-old sister, Luca, already feels the loss of a friend who moved away.

“Her name is Alexandra,” Luca said while sitting on a concrete wall during the demonstration, swinging her legs. “… I was really sad because she had to move out.”

Alexandra’s mom, Sarah Fahey, was among the first residents to move for the renovations.

“I took the Section 8 voucher,” Fahey said by phone, referring to the federal housing assistance program.

“When we got the paperwork, it said that we would be offered places that were comparable,” she said. “When I was at KPT, I had a two-bedroom place.”

Fahey said she has a sometimes painful degenerative condition called cervical and lumbar spondylosis. While it’s not federally recognized as a handicap, her doctor signed a note about the importance of a two-bedroom apartment for her to live in because sharing a bed with her daughter could make her condition worse.

But Fahey moved into a single-bedroom unit anyway after looking at other housing options that were in worse condition.

“I do have a nice place where I am, but the other one-bedrooms that I looked at … were run-down,” she said. “I don’t even think they would’ve passed the Section 8 inspection.”

She said she also feared that if she rejected the one- bedroom unit, she might not be allowed to move back to KPT and would end up living far from Kalihi.

“My fear was that if I don’t take the one-bedroom, when it comes time for demolition they might just stick me in housing somewhere else that could be all the way on the West Side.”

Overall, Fahey said the process has been smooth for her and that she appreciates the help from relocation team members.

“I think they do care,” she said. “I think they’re doing their best with what they have to work with. … It’s just the process itself.”

A place for ohana

Some residents accepted the need for redevelopment but are dissatisfied with how the housing authority and The Michaels Organization have communicated with them.

“I’m not against redevelopment,” resident June Talia said. “I’m just against the way they’re going about doing it.”

Ouansafi acknowledged that some residents need translation assistance, and the agency has tried to help.

“We have proactively provided in-person interpreters, phone-based interpretation and translated documents so that the residents can receive the information they need without having to rely on children or neighbors,” he said.

Talia said the agency should have organized informational meetings for specific groups of non-English speakers, “even if they had to make it Micronesians one night and Samoans another night, whatever it takes to do righteously by the people. … It would make them more comfortable, and the translator would have more time to translate into each language.”

The prospect of major change has been stressful for longtime residents such as Simativa Telefoni, 90, who grew up in the village of Aunu’u in American Samoa and does not speak English. She has lived in the same KPT unit for 56 years and relies on her granddaughters to convey what the renovations mean for her.

Telefoni has decorated her apartment with framed photos of herself and her late husband as a young couple, along with photos of their children and grandchildren. Granddaughter Janiene Sablan Telefoni said her grandmother loves for her apartment to be filled with her boisterous family.

“It’s not a normal day if we don’t come here,” Janiene Telefoni said. “Believe it or not, at this age, she wants her house noisy.”