Blanche McMillan looks across several acres of land in Waimānalo that have been cleared by family and friends. Piles of dirt and logs line the perimeter with the Koʻolau Mountains in the background. She envisions its future.
“I see housing for 300, maybe more,” McMillan states.
Known as “Aunty Blanche,” she will realize this vision just as she did with the nearby 14 acres of land managed by Hui Mahiʻai ʻĀina, a nonprofit that initially started as a foodbank and outreach center.
“This is my backyard. This is where I was raised all my 71 years,” McMillan says with a chuckle as she thinks back to her childhood in the area where she played “cowboys and indians” with her 16 siblings. It is where she and her husband raised eight keiki, cared for 20 foster children, and hānai many others.
The Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) owns the land, which is behind her family homestead. However, McMillan can date the ʻāina back to her great-great-tūtū Rebecca Kahalewai, a high chiefess.
Waimānalo District Councilmember Esther Kiaʻāina, who was DLNR Deputy Director from 2012-2014, recalled McMillan’s decades-long effort to lease the land for agricultural and educational purposes.
“It’s by the grace of God that she’s been on the property because she has no legal authority,” said Kiaʻāina.
McMillan served at St. George Catholic Church as its outreach coordinator for the poor before she took on a greater calling to do more for her community. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, McMillan didn’t wait for permission from the Board of Land and Natural Resources (BLNR) to build a place for the houseless. Instead, she got to work.
Fourteen houseless people from Waimānalo beach who she had been caring for through outreach over the years, went with her to the overgrown DLNR area where she told them, “We’re gonna move here, you guys coming home.”
They, along with McMillan’s family members, cleared the land. “We worked hard. Everything we did, we did it by hand in the beginning, then the neighbors heard about it. The ones who had trucks, machines – they brought the machines in.”
Trees that were cut down and chopped were turned into mulch for future use. Donors came forward with materials and in one month the first nine small structures were up.
“When I put up these homes here, that was during the COVID time and they didn’t give me the lease. I said, forget it. I’m going to save my people and I don’t need the state, city or federal [government] to give me funding. From then on, I had zero, everything that I asked, the Lord provided it.”
Today, there are 59 livable structures, a screened-in kitchen with nearby picnic tables under a large tent, portable toilets, and areas for washing. McMillan runs water from her home which fronts the gated parcel.
Eighty-two individuals are currently at Hui Mahiʻai ʻĀina: four of whom have cancer; 26 are keiki; 15 are kūpuna. The oldest resident is 93. Some residents have pets, which McMillan also welcomes.
“They say, Aunty, I finally got a home that I love and I want to die here. I take care all of them,” said McMillan, whose love is infectious and whose strictness – that only a local aunty can weild – is respected.
Gavin Kalai has been staying at Hui Mahiʻai ʻĀina for four months and said the secure environment and mandatory work schedules have helped him. “This is a real positive place for people like me where I can make something of myself. This is a healing place and has helped me in many ways,” he said.
“The challenges I come across, being here gives me the strength to rise above,” added Clark Choy, another resident who has found inspiration and purpose to give back to the community.
“This is beyond saying, ‘come, I will give you shelter.’ You’re giving them their identity,” said McMillan. “When I decided to do this, I wanted to do it the old Hawaiian way. You bring them home, everybody has one big ʻohana. You love them and care for them and make sure they’re all fine.”
McMillan says providing only shelter without a support system and basic needs, such as food and clothing, won’t work in helping the homeless. McMillan also conducts random drug tests to deter drug use in the community.
Many of McMillan’s family members have a role in Hui Mahiʻai ʻĀina. Her first cousin and longtime Waimānalo resident Mabel Keliʻihoʻomalu helps with fundraising.
“That lady right there and her family have the heart to serve people. This kind of homeless people need extra love, extra, extra, extra, and that one (pointing to McMillan) overflows. She touches everybody and we all get energized and swept up in her motion and we willing to follow her, no matter what,” said Keliʻihoʻomalu.
This includes the mission to grow food for the Waimānalo community. Every second Saturday, residents are required to gather at 8:00 a.m. to work in the 7.5-acre garden that is filled with various plants, fruit trees, and kalo.
“I had to teach them what is [the] Hawaiian way. The old ways, they say, you take care the ʻāina, the ʻāina takes care of you. And that’s exactly what the ʻāina did, it’s taking care of them,” said McMillan. “Every time they put their hands into the soil, into the ground, everything changed their whole life afterwards. This is how it is. Their way of living has changed. They are no longer sad, they’re happy.”
McMillan also teaches residents about resiliency and preparing for disasters such as ensuring that there is an unobstructed ditch to prevent flooding during big rain events.
In addition to developing the acres in Waimānalo, McMillan has started plans to expand to Maui, Hawaiʻi Island and Molokaʻi. She has garnered the support of Gov. Josh Green and respected business leader and aio founder Duane Kurisu to help with the building of future housing initiatives for those in need.
In the meantime, McMillan is getting support from aio to conduct a topographical survey of the area at Hui Mahiʻai ʻĀina. BLNR has yet to grant her a lease due to flooding concerns. However, McMillan said she addressed the area of concern by digging a ditch to direct flowing water from the mountainside toward the bridge that leads to the ocean. When people heard about her plans, she said excavators came forward and tractors were donated.
“Might as well do it because they ain’t gonna do nothing,” she said referring to the government agencies.
For McMillan, digging a ditch is just another example of finding a way to care for the ʻāina and her people.
“She has both the vision and the willpower to get things done for our community against the backdrop of having to navigate all of these bureaucracies,” said Kiaʻāina. “And it’s not easy. She’s a doer.”
