Children thrive best in a nurturing, safe, stable home environment. Homelessness is neither safe nor stable. It is not an environment that promotes the healthy development of children. In fact, being homeless puts children at greater risk for maltreatment. Neighborhood Place of Puna actively works to end family homelessness on …
Puna Hawaii – Neighborhood Place of Puna was the most recent beneficiary of the Ohana Fuels ‘Fuel Up. Do Good’ program. Ohana Fuels partners with nonprofit organizations that serve the needs of the local community, and donates a portion of every gallon of gasoline purchased at all Ohana Fuels stations …
Keaʻau, Hawaiʻi – Neighborhood Place of Puna has been selected as the upcoming beneficiary of the Ohana Fuels ‘Fuel Up. Do Good’ program. Ohana Fuels partners with nonprofit organizations that serve the needs of the local community, and donates a portion of every gallon of gasoline purchased at all Ohana …
In a community struggling with poverty – in which many people simply will not have enough money – the greatest wealth we can help people uncover is their self-value. Knowing that one’s life is valuable is a source of happiness. It gives meaning to our lives, no matter what those …
Neighborhood Place of Puna tries not to turn anyone away. We primarily help families with underage children as well as pregnant and parenting teens. We run an emergency food pantry to help the hungry in our community. And we try to provide resources, referrals, and advocacy to those we cannot …
As Americans, we are torn between two disparate images of poverty. One is the romantic poverty of Thoreau and Saint Francis, the holy poverty of simple lives. The other is vilified poverty, the poverty of the “welfare queen” and the “bum.” The holy poor live in stories and myth. The …
In a rural community like Puna, physical isolation can be a hurdle to success and barrier to accessing even the most basic of resources. Housing is relatively cheap, but transportation is not. This forces individuals and families who are in poverty and lack financial resource—those who need the most support—to …
A woman came to our office on a recent Friday afternoon. She had one of her sons with her and was on the verge of tears from the emotional strain of living in a car with her children. She had a voucher for subsidized housing and had found an apartment, …
Poverty is characterized by insecurity, instability, and stress. When a family does not have enough money to meet even the basic needs of housing, food, transportation, and medicine, they will, by necessity, go without at least one of these essentials for some period of time. A family in poverty will …
2014 has been a hard year for Puna families. In addition to the usual challenges of poverty, isolation, and transportation, Hurricane Iselle came ashore over Puna early in the morning of August 9th, felling trees, closing roads, and forcing many in Puna to live without power for days or weeks. …
