Seated at left, Denise Kaaa, Hawaiian Community Assets homebuyer education trainer, with workshop participants in Hilo. - Photo: Courtesy of Hawaiian Community Assets

OHA grants support financial literacy

Teens, adults will reap benefits

By Lisa Asato / Ka Wai Ola Editor

April is Financial Literacy Month, and thanks to two grants from the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, a Native Hawaiian nonprofit organization is reviving its culture-based financial literacy program for homebuyers – and will expand into offering a similar program for teens in the fall.

Hawaiian Community Assets' Kahua Waiwai program ties financial know-how to Native Hawaiian resource management, taking the philosophy of “take what you need and save everything else for tomorrow,” said Blossom Feitera, a founder of the nonprofit. “It's just a question of … looking at money as a resource – if managed correctly, it can do wonderful things for you,” she added. An effective comparison is how families sacrifice to save for their baby's first lū'au as soon as babies are born, she said. “It's not an issue because we know it's going to benefit the baby in the future.”

An eight-month $23,000 grant from OHA's Health, Human Services and Housing Hale is helping the nonprofit to revive Kahua Waiwai, initiated in 2000 and later shelved due to funding and other constraints. Kahua Waiwai translates to “Foundation for Wealth.”

Hawaiian Community Assets, whose mission is to increase homeownership for low- and moderate-income families with a focus on the Native Hawaiian community, is also developing a financial education program for teens age 14 to 18 with the help of a $32,000 yearlong grant from OHA's Education Hale. That curriculum will also be culture-based and will include topics ranging from making a savings plan to career training and learning how to write checks, said Jeff Gilbreath, HCA's youth programs coordinator.

HCA also serves as a nonprofit mortgage broker through its Hawai'i Community Lending arm, which specializes in loans for homesteads through the state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands. HCA is a main service provider of the Home Ownership Assistance Program, or HOAP, which is funded by DHHL and OHA. Hawaiian Community Assets helps Native Hawaiian achieve economic self-sufficiency through homeownership by providing free homebuyer courses, one-on-one counseling in credit repair, debt reduction, budgeting, mortgage qualification and more.