LIHU‘E — Will a proposal by HanaMana Healing Center to convert the former Wong’s Care Home at the end of Kawaihau Road in Kapa‘a Homesteads into treatment and rehabilitation center for drug and alcohol abusers create safety problems for neighbors?
LIHU‘E — Will a proposal by HanaMana Healing Center to convert the former Wong’s Care Home at the end of Kawaihau Road in Kapa‘a Homesteads into treatment and rehabilitation center for drug and alcohol abusers create safety problems for neighbors?
Residents raised pros and cons over that issue at a Kaua‘i County Planning Commission hearing held at the Lihu‘e Civic Center Tuesday.
In a letter to the commission, Harold D. and Norma Jean Brown, who live next door to the care home, asked the commission to reject the proposal, stressing safety concerns.
No action was taken by the commission, although the proposal has garnered support from Mayor Bryan J. Baptiste. He said in a June 30 letter to HanaMana Executive Director Hans Tangelder that “Kaua‘i is in need of such a facility.”
“Our island has been without a residential drug-treatment center since Serenity House closed its small operation on the grounds of Mahelona Hospital (in Kapa‘a) several years ago,” Baptiste wrote. A copy of the letter was sent to the commission and county Planning Department for review.
In their own letter to the commission, the Browns said their family “lived uncomfortably” for 25 years next to the Wong’s Care Home before it closed in recent years.
The couple said their family dealt with episodes of runaways and nighttime searches by police that left the family unnerved.
“Now they are proposing a center for alcoholics and drug addicts,” the Browns wrote. “How do I protect my family against them?” The Browns indicated the safety of their granddaughters also could be placed in jeopardy by the project, if approved.
The Browns said they are ill at ease in spite of a pledge by HanaMana representatives to put up gates and fences around a one-acre parcel on which the former care home sits.
Even though the operators of Wong’s Care Home promised to put up fencing, the Browns said they had to put up a fence around their property “to prevent patients from coming onto our property.”
The owners of the care home — April K. Wong-Warling, her husband, Thomas, and her mother and father — ran the facility for some 30 years before closing in recent years.
At the time of its closure, the facility garnered praise from the community for having served multitudes of people over the years who had been diagnosed with mental illness and drug- and substance-abuse problems.
A letter opposing the latest proposed use of the former care home also came from Diana Marshman, a resident of Kawaihau Road. She said that if the project is approved, recovering drug addicts and drug users will occupy buildings that overlook more than 40 homes.
Up to 456 people could be treated at the facility during the year, and “they will know the homes lived in by defenseless widows, elderly couples or women home alone with young children,” Marshman wrote.
“They will have access to our children via the school bus stop directly across the street,” she wrote.
In response in a letter to the commission, Tangelder said he is aware of the safety concerns raised by some residents, but noted their fears are “born of hysteria and fear of the unknown.”
“We have made it clear in our proposal that there is very little impact on this largely rural area, with very few neighbors,” Tangelder wrote.
Tangelder said Wong’s Care Home “peacefully co-existed” in the neighborhood as a care facility for the past 30 years, and indicated that relationship will remain so with the HanaMana project.
In addition to security concerns about the project, the Browns also contended that laundry water, apparently from the care-home site, flowed across their property and into a stream. The Browns also were concerned about encroachment issues raised by the project.
The couple asked that commission grant them “intervenor status” in the case, as a way to provide a more detailed examination of the proposal.
The new-use proposal drew support from April K. Wong-Warling, one of the operators of the former Wong’s Care Home. Wong said when she ran that operation, she and staffers began seeing in the 1980s patients diagnosed with mental illnesses and substance abuse or addiction.
Their programs had to be expanded to include treatment for recovering alcoholics and drug abusers, she wrote in a letter to the commission in supporting the HanaMana project.
“I was required by the state of Hawai‘i to be certified as an alcohol-addictions counselor, and received that certification in 1985,” Wong-Warling wrote.
Letters of support for the HanaMana proposal also came from:
- Scott N. Giarman, executive director of the Kauai United Way, who noted “there is a desperate need of such a facility;”
- Thomas Warling, co-owner of the old Wong’s Care Home. Kaua‘i has not had a residential drug-treatment center since Serenity House closed, he said, adding, “We support your intent to carry on this work, and to fill the void that exists on the island today.”
- Alton G. Kanter, a Kilauea-based acupuncturist. “I must commend you (HanaMana) for your efforts. They will result in bringing not only hope where there is presently hopelessness, but joy where there is now a deep sadness in this community,” he wrote.
Tangelder said the project is long overdue; will not cater to criminal elements; will be set up so that people can see patients by appointments; and will operate 24 hours a day.
Patients will be screened, and their daily routines will consist primarily of in-house classes, meetings, lectures, counseling, study sessions, meals and free-time activities, Tangelder said.
In addition to himself, Tangelder said the proposed center will employ an administrative assistant, a certified program director, a counselor, cook, nurse and two technical assistants, with an additional secretary or employees as needed.
For its project, HanaMana officials are seeking from the commission various permits, including a use permit and a Class IV zoning permit.
The interior of the former care home will be renovated to accommodate up to 35 patients, with four existing one-bedroom apartments set aside for their use, according to county Planning Department planners.
An existing recreation room also will be renovated for group meetings and “resident functions,” the planning staff report said.
Staff Writer Lester Chang may be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 225) or mailto:lchang@pulitzer.net.
