An Important Big Island Clean And Sober House Is Forced To Close
Laukapu House has been a refuge from the streets and addiction for seven years, serving more than 1,000 people in need, but must now vacate the property.
HILO, Hawaii Island — When Ricky Bowen was released after serving two years in the Hilo jail, he camped behind a church for several days. And then, on Friday morning he appeared on the doorstep of the Laukapu Clean and Sober Independent Living House.
He had been released without enough money to rent a place, and sat at a picnic table outside of Laukapu with rain pelting the gray tarp above his head, waiting to be told if Laukapu would take him in.
“I have nothing. I have no resources, I have no family, I have no friends, I have nothing. What you see is what I have,” he said, gesturing at the shorts and T-shirt he wore, and his black backpack.
Other inmates at the Hawaii Community Correctional Center told Bowen to seek shelter at Laukapu, which is operated by Access Capabilities Inc., but his timing was unlucky.
The facility has operated out of a seven-bedroom house in the Waiakea Houselots area since 2015, but it now faces a May 5 deadline to vacate the property. The rented home is likely worth $1 million or more, and the owner decided to sell while Hilo’s real estate market is on the upswing.
The home has served as a safe refuge for recovering addicts, former inmates, homeless people and refugees from domestic violence. Debra Ravey, who is executive director of the operation, estimated that since it first opened, 1,000 people have used the house as a place to regain their footing and try to reorganize their lives.
“It just hit, like, all of a sudden,” she said. “A group of people came in, looked at the house, and next thing I know, we have 45 days.”
As of Friday morning Ravey had 14 residents still living in the house, and she issued an urgent plea to the Hilo social services network for referrals to facilities or programs where the remaining residents can be placed.
Local agencies are trying to find slots, but there is a waitlist even at the Hilo homeless shelter. “It’s very hard because it takes time for paperwork to go through, and we just don’t have that,” she said.
“It’s hard for them because they have felonies, hard for them because their credit is not good — all the normal challenges —聽 but a home like this gave them that opportunity to stay off the streets,” Ravey said.
Laukapa resident Angie Pooloa, 51, was caught up in drugs for a time and was involved in a violent relationship, and she also landed in the Hilo jail. She moved to Oregon after she was released, and became entangled in another violent relationship.
She returned to Hawaii, lived briefly in an abandoned house in Puna with a family member who was squatting there, and then sought shelter at Laukapu. She still has kin on the Big Island, she said, “but right now, I wouldn’t call them family.”
She has been at Laukapu since December, and the residents are like her family, Pooloa said. “The trust, we get along good, we laugh, there’s times we can cook for each other,” she said.
She is still on probation for assault and has an array of health problems, including diabetes, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. She has suffered three strokes — her first when she was 31 — and hasn’t worked steadily since 2003, she said. She does not know what will happen when Laukapu home closes.
“Honestly, if I have to go in the streets, I will do that,” Pooloa said. “It’s kind of hard. I don’t want to depend on nobody.”
Laukapu resident Gary Tinao Jr. has his own extensive history of drug abuse that included heroin, crystal methamphetamine and marijuana, but he had been clean for five years as of Saturday. He said Laukapu helped “countless people,” and the best thing about the home is that each resident must undergo urinalysis every Wednesday.
“If you’re not sober, you’re out,” he said. “Then you know who is real, and who is fake.”
Bowen, who arrived at Laukapu on Friday hoping to move in, is a former crane operator from Phoenix with a history of methamphetamine use. He was clean when he moved to Hawaii in 2017 to help take care of his wife’s uncle, who was dying, and went to work fixing up a house on a family property in Puna. But then he began to drink.
During a blackout drunk in 2020 he attacked his wife, and police said he shot at her with a .22-caliber rifle, missing her. Bowen said he has no memory of the attack, and he woke up from the binge in jail.
He was convicted of attempted manslaughter, but Bowen said he had no previous history of violence, and his wife helped him secure a relatively lenient sentence of probation with jail time. His wife — now his ex-wife — returned to Arizona, and some of his children won’t speak to him. “They’re wanting to see if Dad stays sober,” he said.
Bowen was released from HCCC on Tuesday, and met members of a Hilo church after he went there for an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. He cried as he recalled meeting the pastor, and how one of the church members bought him a sleeping bag. The church let him stay there for a few days.
He hoped to stay at Laukapu while he seeks permission from the state to complete his probation in Arizona. He said family members have agreed to fly him back there.
“I’m beyond broke,” Bowen said. “God is walking with me today. In the process of losing everything in jail, I found God.”
When asked if Bowen would be allowed to stay at Laukapu, Ravey said it makes little sense to admit him. “If I do that, I’m only going to jeopardize him also,” she said. “I mean, think about it. We have to exit. That’s where it becomes hard. We’re trying to figure it out.”
Later that afternoon she relented, and explained with a small sigh that he can move in, at least for a while. “You don’t want him back on the streets, relapsing,” Ravey said. “It’s hard to say no.”
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