ANAHOLA — Robin Danner stands in the side yard of a modest house in Anahola that has been transformed by construction of a prototype for a small shed intended to shelter kupuna or members of large families if they have to self-quarantine to protect against COVID-19.
It’s intended as an easily constructed, inexpensive remedy to what Danner sees as a looming problem as Native Hawaiian families confront a virus that disproportionately strikes older people at a time that many already crowded households may be joined by still more residents who are economic victims of the virus.
The prototype, said Danner, who heads the Homestead Community Development Corp., was built in less than four days by a crew of three. It uses materials easily procured at places like the Home Depot or Honsador Lumber.
The organization has offices in Anahola and Honolulu. Its website is hawaiianhomsteads.org.
The construction cost depends on the degree to which the quarantine shed is tricked out. For the prototype, Danner splurged on French doors from The Home Depot that have built-in blinds. She said typical examples of the shed could be built for between $2,500 and $7,500.
Danner’s organization is a Native Hawaiian nonprofit that primarily serves families who live on state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands properties throughout the state. So far, with marketing effectively limited to word of mouth, 39 families have signed up to build sheds. Interest has come from O‘ahu, Maui, Hawai‘i Island and Kaua‘i, she said.
“I haven’t marketed it heavily,” she said. “Given the level of interest, I’m almost scared to.” The development corporation is raising capital, and has about $200,000 ready to commit to loans for the quarantine structures, she said. More money is being sought.
The key element of Danner’s strategy is a loan program that will provide financing with monthly payments of between $90 and $183, with 24- and 48-month term options. Participants can either build the sheds completely on their own or use tool and material lists the organization can supply, as well as an instruction manual.
The sheds lack plumbing or electrical service and are below the size limit that triggers the need for a building permit. “The sheds give us a way to self-quarantine and it’s not a $30,000 project,” she said. “This is not going to break the bank and it’s not going to break your back.”
The program was unveiled last week. By the weekend, however, Danner had already moved onto a second concept for which she thinks there may also be significant demand among DHHL lessee families. It would be a separate structure functioning as what she called “the backyard bathroom.” It would require water and electrical service and connection to a cesspool or septic tank. A building permit would be necessary, Danner said.
Such bathrooms could be another way to ease the burden on extended families crowded into houses that were not designed for the numbers of people occupying them.
“I think COVID-19 has revealed some of our complacency,” she said. “We’re overcrowded. We kind of just accept it, but COVID-19 has made it unacceptable now because it’s dangerous. We could be hurting our kupuna and our own family members. It’s unacceptable and it’s not insurmountable.
“The solution is less than $5,000, but that’s at a time when even $1,000 would be a lot for any family in Hawai‘i to have lying around. That’s why we are creating a loan product.”
She said the quarantine shed idea surfaced initially during a conference call among leaders of Hawaiian homestead organizations. “One of the top priorities brought to our attention was that we need to protect our kupuna,” she said. “We need an elder defense line. The solution is so simple.
“We sometimes reach for harder solutions not just to address COVID-19, but overcrowding in which family members are in a tent in the yard or family members are homeless in a tent.
“I would say to our Native Hawaiian families this is not the time to question what you assume your credit score to be. Let us worry about that. This is not the time to deny your elders a quarantine unit.”
County Councilmember Kipukai Kualii, who lives on DHHL land near where Danner’s crew has erected the shed, said the quarantine unit definitely is “another solution, though not necessarily a long-term housing solution.
“Many of our families live in overcrowded homes and, in the sense that people are trying to do quarantine and social distancing, it’s hard. It’s another small solution to give people options.”
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Allan Parachini is a Kilauea resident, furniture-maker, journalist and retired public relations executive who writes periodically for The Garden Island.
hey i need one of those for when my mother -in-law visits…..no bathroom, no water, no kitchen, no electricity…..
OR
non conforming vacation rental ! off to jail or bankruptcy court you go, if you rent it out;
Tickled that TGI allows this particular “brainless” thankfully EX-politician to have Guest publishing and those of us awakened and repeatedly kicked under the kauai bus for “guest” publishing that is truth and has integrity that Hooze doesnt have. The COK, Kauai bus, KHS, judiciary hierarchy and many many Kauaians that are carrying another kind of virus like the “guilty kealoha stolen mailbox” fraud and corruption which has been highlighted, like gasgate, tax evasion, or criminalization via judiciary, that somehow these people are all above the “pointy finger” laws, but via these same Epstein types and Tgi peeps, who still thinks there is “value” received from the very same crooks that made this mess to begin with. Retroactively, their time is over. These slithering snakes have been so often, that it is time for us to lock them up in a prison setting, while at the same juncture releasing innocents, so that these supposed leaders get the cell that an innocent was released from. You cannot fool us any longer. These same peoples set up Mr Brun and are on the worldwide list, which includes their very own proverbial mark of the beast. Lock them in the “kupuna” dannerhola dog houses and include all that hui that our lists outline.
leave it to Robin to always have some sort of an “angle”. Just drop the rod in, put a hook on the end of the line and see what bites. Its always been about making money and not the good of the people, and it has always been about exploitation and selling out. I would steer clear. I would rather put the Kupuna up in empty hotel rooms and condos, and reimburse those properties from Federal funds, or state and county funds. period.
Funny, hysterical, comedic, cynical, satyrical…if this was a joke.
“Grandma, you bought home the dang virus, so get out of the house and into your shed…! ! !
Never mind the NO water, the NO Electric, the NO Toilet, No fridge No stove, NO TV, Radio, A/C (just open the door and let the mosquitos finish the job with malaria and dengue fever.
Spare bedroom for the kids? Maybe…Mausoleum for the Matriarch of the Family…?
…don’t thank so…! ! !
Tools and mower and weedeater, sure, but you can get bigger and better at the Depot for under $900 and it is plastic and rubber so no termites, dry rot, or rust., you can even put 2 sets of short bunk beds in it and put your 4 kids in there and let them, run to the bathroom at night in the house.
Besides it will get them used to, and feel lucky about having to live in a studio apt the rest of their lives on Kauaid.
What person could possibly even think of putting their elderly Mother in a shed when they were sick…much less less getting ready to run the Senior Marathon.
This is a parody, right…! ! ! …on Elder Abuse…
Dang forgot to mention the really cool prefab floor joists made out of redwood stair stringers…so that it makes for an easy collapsible shed when it rains hard, plus the weight of Grandma inside , who know, maybe Grandpa too…the stair stingers will collapse from the weight and the shed can sink into the mud, so maybe enough mud only ankle deep in the shed …as well in a Hurricane the shed not attached to those tofu blocks, can blow into the neighbor’s yard and Granma can live with the neighbiors…you’ll be safe from the virus better that way.