May 29, 2008
Helping displaced farm workers
Hawaii’s agricultural sector has fallen on hard times over the last few decades. Big growers have pulled out, one by one, and taken their business elsewhere. Sugar cane was once a major Hawaii crop. I don’t think it’s being grown anywhere in the islands now. Each closure brings heartache. Ag workers make a decent living, but most will never accumulate enough money to own a home or even to rent in our ridiculously high-priced housing market. Some of them live in plantation villages, owned by the growers. Many families have lived in the same plantation housing for several generations. When the job goes, so does the home. That’s how it usually works. Someone owns the land, maybe someone else buys it when the company moves on. That someone has a bottom line to be satisfied, a profit to be made. I’m not knocking that. I understand how business works. Sometimes, though, businesses recognize that they hold something precious in their hands and they do their best to protect it. The James Campbell Company is HUGE business in Hawaii. One of their assets is a plantation village in Kunia, not too far from me. The folks who live there either retired from Del Monte after long-term employment, or they were still working for the company when Fresh Del Monte Produce closed down in 2006. They were allowed to stay on while disposition of the land was decided. Now their fate has been determined, and the decision is a good one. Campbell has agreed to sell Kunia Plantation Village to nonprofit Hawaii Agriculture Research Center for $1. Yep, you read that right - one dollar. The village will be preserved as part of Hawaii’s historic agricultural heritage and most of the residents who live there will be able to stay in their homes. They pay rent, but at rates applied under an affordable housing agreement. Many of them would most likely have ended up homeless but for this arrangement.
I’m sick of seeing the homeless families on the beach every time I drive along the coast. I don’t mean that the folks who live on the beach make me sick. I mean that their situation makes me heartsick. Our homelsss population continues to grow and the programs that are supposed to be helping them are inadequate and slow, most of them hopelessly tangled up in red tape. All of us working together - government, charities, citizens and businesses - can solve these problems if we put our hearts, our minds and our money to the task. Mahalo, James Campbell Company, for doing your part. You could have sold that land for millions. You could have done that and turned a hundred or so families into the next wave of homeless. Oh, I’m sure it was a sound business decision on your behalf, but it’s probably not the most profitable thing you could have done. You made the right choice. Mahalo nui loa.
Technorati Tags: Hawaii, housing, James Campbell Company, Kunia Plantation Village
Posted by skeet @ 10:04 pm • Hawaii, Society & culture
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May 30th, 2008 at 1:25 am, lee Says:
Wow, a corporation that did the right thing…how cool!! Thanks for sharing that story Skeet
May 30th, 2008 at 2:39 pm, skeet’s stuff » Sharing the Good Stuff Says:
[…] happy about a corporate giant giving back this week, too. They didn’t have to sell a valuable parcel of land for $1.00, but they’re part of our community, too, and chose to do the right […]