By the Inside Outreach team · November 18, 2025This past Saturday we stood on an empty piece of land in Waimānalo and watched history happen.
Aunty Blanche broke ground. Not on tents. Not on tiny homes. On real housing, for more than 300 people.
What’s coming
The plans include common areas and kitchens, a playground, recreation space, and a clinic. Everything a community needs to actually live, not just survive.
It’s the next step from where they are now, on the other side of the road. Tiny homes and tents, a garden, a market, rules and family.
“It’s amazing to see what it was and what it is today, four or five years later.”
Daniel Molina
They finally said yes
Here’s the part that got us. A lot of government officials showed up. People who, in the beginning, weren’t so sure about Aunty’s way of doing things. Some of them said no.
This time they came to say yes. We’re grateful they turned the corner. That’s what happens when somebody keeps proving it works, year after year, until nobody can argue.
How we got here
We’ve been behind Aunty Blanche since 2020. When the storm flipped her foodbank in 2023, the community rebuilt it. Donors kept buying tiny homes for the camp, one at a time. The latest one was just last month.
We ran a sign-making workshop so residents could promote their market stalls. Christmas after Christmas, the keiki got bikes.
None of that was glamorous. All of it led here.
Why this matters
On one night in January, Oʻahu’s count found thousands of people without a home. Hundreds of them were kids. The number of people in homeless families keeps going up.
Everybody talks about that problem. Aunty Blanche is solving it. With a shovel, a garden and a whole lot of aloha.
Be part of it
What it took to get here
People ask how a woman with a farm and a lot of heart ends up breaking ground on homes for 300 people. The honest answer is years of showing up when nobody was watching.
Walking the beach every week. Talking people out of tents one at a time. Feeding about 600 people a month out of a container. Teaching folks to farm, to sell at the makeke, to live with rules again. Then doing it again the next week.
And it was never only about a roof. Residents work the garden, run their own stalls and learn to show up for each other. A roof is the start. Work and family are how you keep it.
Mahalo
To everyone who has given a dollar, a bike, a tiny home, a weekend or a prayer to Hui Mahiʻai ʻĀina. This day belongs to you too.
We don’t know exactly how long the build will take. We do know Aunty won’t stop until people are moving in.
Building 300 homes takes a lot of hands. If you’ve helped before, mahalo. You’re part of this story. If you haven’t, now’s a good time to start. Give, come work the garden, or shop the next Hui Mahiʻai ʻĀina Makeke.
Houseless no more. Let’s go.
