 Welcome to the show policy for the people. I'm your host, Menara Mordecai. The show is dedicated to unveiling pressing issues that are facing Hawaii and attempting to identify policies that will provide good and just solutions. The show is dedicated to rethinking and redefining what economic inequality looks like in Hawaii. What does it mean to move away from deficit thinking to abundance? I'm delighted to welcome our guest, Janice Ikeda. She's the executive director of Vibrant Hawaii, which is a community organization based in Hilo, Hawaii, Ireland. Vibrant Hawaii is also a collective impact movement representing many organizations. I will let my guests introduce Vibrant Hawaii in detail, but first, Janice, welcome to the show. Hello, Menara, and well, hello, Nui, for having me. Welcome. I'm so happy to have you. So tell us more about who makes up Vibrant Hawaii, what are the stakeholders organizations, and why was it important to create it? Yeah, so a few, it started with a few stakeholders and they called themselves the SAM, Small and Mighty. And it really was a small and mighty group that came together, just a handful of folks that included Chancellor Rachel Solemsaus from Hawaii Community College, Hala Paki Nahalea representing Kamehameha Schools on Hawaii Island. There was Carol Ignacio, who's a phenomenal community leader who actually started both the food basket and Hope Services Hawaii on our island. Charlene Niboshi, who was a retired prosecuting attorney and a couple of folks representing the mayor's office from the county. So a diverse group of stakeholders, they came together, concerned about the Alice Report that came out in 2018. What they saw was the high number of Alice Hawaii Island leading the state in Alice and the trajectory from 2016 to 2018 where it had grown by 14% and just seeing year upon year the number of Alice households on our island growing. And so there was great concern around that, came together to think about what might we be able to contribute to changing that data and that experience for folks. What that led to though was something much more powerful than what we imagined back then. And it has become what Vibrant Hawaii is today, which is a real place for folks to be able to come together across districts. We live on a really big island and oftentimes folks are working within their district and not aware of what's going on or the resources available to them across districts, working across disciplines and across sectors. And one of the things that we decided on early on was to change the goal. And so oftentimes we had heard, we just need everyone paddling in the same canoe and you may have heard that as well. And what we said was, we need everyone to stay in their own canoe and be excellent at what their charge is and do the very best at what they are called to do but we can paddle in that same direction. And so there was a lot of time spent in conversation about what is that same direction? And that really started the conversation of what is our vision of a Vibrant Hawaii? And so that was one of the first conversations that we took around the island and asked folks to share with us, what is their vision of a Vibrant Hawaii? There was a lot of universal themes that came up but what folks shared became the priority areas or what we now call streams in our work. And so we have five of those streams or priority areas that we focus on and bring people together to work collectively on, which is our Hawaii Island Housing Coalition, our Health and Well-Being Stream, our Economy Stream, Education, Financial Resilience and our Resilience Bumps. This is great, it's a lot to cover too. So going back a little bit, you mentioned Alice Report and I know you took part in working on the Alice Report. Can you tell us just briefly what it is? So the audience is familiar with the national trends that have been emerging with Alice Report, what it highlighted about Hawaii, but really I want to focus on what it didn't show so you can tell us about that. Yeah, so Alice is an acronym that stands for Asset-Limited Income Constrained Employed. And so these are working folks, are working families who are above the federal poverty level threshold but are not earning enough income to meet a basic survival budget. And there's specific things within that survival budget that include housing, transportation, health, food, some technology, like internet access and childcare. And so again, this measure is looking at how many households are employed but do not meet that minimum survival budget to, yeah. What we, so again, for Hawaii Island, a high percentage of households living in Alice or in poverty, what we actually saw that was really encouraging was the poverty level was actually decreasing on Hawaii Island. And that was an indication that our social services are doing an incredible job at what they are called to do and their mission. But what was happening was folks were moving out of poverty and right into Alice. And so oftentimes living in that gap of, and we've heard it a lot in Hawaii, making too much to get any kind of assistance but not enough to be able to make ends meet. And so that's really the situation that folks in Alice are in. When we went around the island and asked folks to tell us their story about their experience with poverty or the way that they're struggling, what we were surprised to hear, which really changed the focus of our work early on were folks not identifying with the idea of being poor. So when we presented the working poor, which is the way the story often gets told, more often than not people were saying, well, we don't feel poor. And so we asked why. And we were told things like, well, I live in Puna where the data shows that 78% of folks at the time were living in Alice or in poverty. And they said, well, we don't feel poor because we might be the worst when it comes to income but we're the best when it comes to Ohana. And none of us are making it on our own and all of us are making it because of Ohana. And without Ka'u, where it's 77% in Alice or in poverty, the folks there said, we like it like this. And I was so shocked to hear that, that I wrote it on my post-it board and I wrote, you like it like this because I thought, surely that's, I didn't hear that correctly. How could that be? And then they started to talk about the reciprocity and the way that they live as community. And I will help you watch your kids and you will help me fix my car. And there's still a lot of sharing of food resources happening and they'd like it like that. And so it made us curious around what is wealth and what is our definition of wealth on Hawaii Island? And it really brought to light an opportunity to shift a deficit narrative that is being told about who we are. It was an opportunity to lean into the practices of data justice and in what is talked about restoring the broken dignity of a people by the stories that are being told about a community. And so we asked folks, we'd had a huge gathering and this was a really tremendous like mind shifting exercise. We had 200 folks together. This is pre-COVID course. And everyone in the room was given 10 beams and they sat on tables and at each table there was four bowls and there was a bowl that represented human capital, a bowl that represented social capital, a bowl that represented natural capital and a bowl for financial capital. And we asked these stakeholders, government officials, social service executives and business leaders, faith leaders, folks representing the community, just a broad diverse stakeholder group. In your vision of a vibrant Hawaii, how do you invest your 10 beams in these four different areas, human, social, natural and financial capital? And they put their beams in the bowls and we counted it all up. And then we asked in the reality of your life today, how do you invest your beams? And we counted it all up. And then we asked in the sector that you're representing today, how do you see your sector investing their beams? And we counted it all up. And the data from that exercise really informed what we know for our island defines wealth and what is wealth to us because the highest investment in our vision of a vibrant Hawaii is our human capital. What we feel that we're able to contribute in a meaningful way. The second was social capital, the relationships that we have with each other. The third highest contribution was toward natural capital and that kinship that we have with Aina and the least valued of before was financial capital. It was really telling. And so for us when we now have the opportunity to own our narrative and to be saying, are we hitting our goals? Are we being successful according to the values that we have on our island? We're able to measure it across those. Are we contributing in ways that are meaningful to a greater collective? Are we building relationships and sharing with each other and connecting in those ways? And that's been a really powerful shift. Yeah. And as a researcher, this is an important lesson for all of us to think about that people perceived facts as neutral, but data collection starts with first asking the right questions, right? So when we were dealing with policy making, we first have to find out what is it that we're measuring? So there's a shift that you're working on from, moving away from traditional data collection for economic wellbeing and redefining what economic wellbeing means in Hawaii. So do you see now that you've experienced that and that you've had this conversation with community leaders and stakeholders? Do you see the gaps between the actual needs and wants of the communities that you serve and the policies that are coming from the state and county governments that are meant to address these needs? We did a follow-up and it was specifically under our stream or our priority area of financial resilience. And this was a really interesting cross-sector approach to what we typically think about when we think about financial literacy or financial resilience. And because of the experience that we had had, again, at that convening where we launched vibrant Hawaii and had those 200 stakeholders together, one of the areas that were presented around health and wellbeing was around ACEs and BCs. So adverse and beneficial childhood experiences and the impact that those early experiences have on long-term and adult health. One of the things that we learned in that presentation was also around trauma-informed care and the impacts that trauma has. We did a really interesting exercise where we had folks anonymously fill out a survey of sorts that had five adverse experiences and five benevolent experiences. And we said, if it's true for you, to check the box. And it was completely done anonymously. At the end of the exercise, folks folded up their responses and passed it around the room and continued until nobody knew whose paper they were holding or where their form was. And then we had everyone sit down and one by one we read off these prompts. Under the age of 18, did you experience divorce? Did you have a family member who lived with alcoholism or substance use issues? And then as we read them out, if it was marked on their form, we asked them to stand up for the person whose paper they were holding. And folks in the room were so surprised to see that the number of adverse childhood experiences and traumatic childhood experiences was not limited to those people that we often think about. Oh, those people had done it. And it was the awareness of this is us. This is all of us. We've all experienced adversity. We've all experienced benevolence in our life. And so when we talk about community, we're not talking about those people we're talking about us. That leads into this conversation of financial resilience because we took that learning from a very different discipline and applied it to financial resilience. And so we said, if we know that trauma impacts a person's brain, physically impacts your brain and makes it difficult to hold onto a distant optimistic future. And we know through science, that's what trauma does. Makes it very difficult to hold on to a distant optimistic future. We said within financial resilience, isn't that exactly what a savings account is? Isn't that exactly what a retirement account is? And so how do we begin to take the science and the learning that we're having around with trauma and brain formation and everything and use it to be able to make good decisions in the programs that are coming out to support people's financial resilience. And then this group of wonderful folks who are amazing in their field said, I think we don't understand enough about this. Like we understand income and expenses and budgeting and all of this, but we don't understand the lived experience of folks. We had one person say, I don't need you to tell me how to budget because I know how to budget. I can take $10 and feed my family of six for a week. I know how to budget. And so we started on another kinds of listening and it was a system mapping exercise that was called Get Chance, Get Choice. And this was really inspired by former Mayor Billy Kenoy at the dedication of a permanent supportive housing project had said, everybody just wants to know that they get chance and they get choice. And we have found over and over and over for that to be so true. And so I think, going back to your question in what are the gaps that we're seeing between the actual needs that the community has and the decisions that are being made to support, I think those are two really important pieces. One, realizing that we're talking about all of us, we're not talking about those people. And second, that the solutions being applied need to consider various, we use the word makavalu a lot these days, being able to see it from all different perspectives. And so when you're approaching housing, you're not just looking at the building and the unit, you're really looking and considering the environment and the relationship that folks will have with that environment, considering the education and the access to education within that geographic area, is there broadband infrastructure available for the people moving there? Is there school? Are the schools maxed out? Is there capacity for the schools? Is there access to health in that area? Is there spaces for folks to be growing their own medicine in that area? What is, how are we going to design a community rather than just designing a housing unit? And so I think there's a lot to be said in the approach of bringing different stakeholders together, different disciplines to look at any kind of solution that comes up. That's great. I mean, it's exactly what I think of policy is that it is systemic, right? We can just approach it from a single industry's perspective and just, we're just only going to do housing and not think about unintended consequences that may not occur. So when you talk about choice, do you feel like in your conversations with people on Hawaii Island, is there a feeling of that their choices are limited or that their voices are not being heard or considered? Yeah, you know what was really surprising to me from our very first tour around the island and talking to people was when we asked that question around, you know, you're working poor, do you feel poor and they were like, we don't feel poor. One of the indicators of why folks did not identify with poverty or feeling poor was if they had choice. And so saying, I don't feel poor because I choose to be a stay-at-home mom. I choose to be a foster mom. I chose to not take a promotion at work that would have made me have to travel a lot because I want to come home and be able to take care of my aging parents so that that ability to have a choice was powerful. You know, when we talk about even housing, it's not that everyone wants to live in a luxurious 2000 square foot home. And so our housing coalition takes care to understand that we need a spectrum of housing options. And I think the approach that vibrant Hawaii takes is always give people options, give people choice because the ability to have a choice is an indication that allows folks to experience wealth and what wealth means. Yeah, it sounds like we need to move away from this cookie cutter single trajectory where your success is defined by, you know, the big house, a eight to five job or whatever it is, even just rethinking success and wealth that fits different sets of people and communities and priorities. And it's not only applicable to policy, it has been very applicable to rent support. One of the projects that we had the privilege of leading towards the end of last year through CARES funding was with our resilience hubs. And we quickly learned as an organization who was giving out funds to support community that a cookie cutter approach did not work and our community was so great to like tell us early on. And help us to learn. And they were really our teachers in how to do this. And it's a lot of work, but so incredibly effective. Thank you. I asked my guests this question. It's a very important one. If you were sitting at the decision-making table with your expertise, your work, the communities that you serve as a decision maker, what policies both short-term and long-term, would you put into place for your communities? I can hear what I've heard. What folks from Hawaii Island have shared with me is very important. At the top of the list, starting at a federal level, the Jones Act, there is a lot of friendship placed on our community, on small businesses, just across the board because of the Jones Act. State and county procurement policies. We're looking at the way that is written and the impacts that it has on small businesses, which ultimately has an impact on working families. Minimum wage, access to early learning. Right now, there's a lot of speculation buying happening on our island, I'm sure across the state, but there are huge impacts happening as a result of that. Looking at our building codes, that's a hot topic right now on our island and with our housing shortage and the way that there's an international standard and some of those do not apply living in a tropical climate like Hawaii, but really looking that the language within is not being altered to serve special interest groups. One of the things that we are really leaning towards and a lot of it has been inspired by the work of the Aina Aloha Economic Futures Group is looking at Aina-based education because sustainability is such a hot topic right now. And when you look at the content of Aina-based education, these are really the experts at the kinds of Hawaii that we are trying to reach. And so within our hiring practices, within our promoting practices, are we recognizing the skill set of students who have come out of Aina-based education schools and prioritizing their knowledge as expertise? And the last is when we heard from community about access to resources, the vision of a vibrant Hawaii more than any other word, this word access came up, access to resources. And then realizing how many resources we have access to that are not typically recognized as just rich, rich abundant resources and how can we integrate those within our everyday practice and utilization? And so within our health and wellbeing stream, looking at things like being able to work in Alohi, being able to have access to a fishpan, a lokoi, and the benefits that has both on your physical and mental health, and how might we begin to normalize and integrate access to these resources within things like employee assistance programs that already recognize other practices like yoga and meditation, how can we begin to integrate what Hawaii uniquely has to offer? And provide access to our working folks there. These are, of course, great ideas, Olam, and it's not surprising because you're doing the actual work and you're well-informed in everything that you've just stated. I'm gonna hang on to the low-hanging fruit here. I'm hoping that someone does watch this and actually takes some of your advice. So I think you mentioned procurement policy. It seems like it's something that should be easily fixed. So how would you fix that, the state and county procurement policy to help small businesses? I think just looking at the lowest bid is not always beneficial or realistic where business is in Hawaii because of the Jones Act because we pay extra for shipping because everything has to come over. So I think, you know, re-looking at that in the negative ripple effects that simply going for the lowest bid has is the intent is to keep as much money that is generated from taxpayers in Hawaii and to keep that money in Hawaii, that's huge. The other piece that we're really interested in is building the capacity of our community to really understand the process of getting onto some of the government professional services list in things like consultation and facilitation and some of these bids that often go out to companies and not from Hawaii. And then what we've all seen and experienced as a result is folks coming in, experts being brought in from not Hawaii. It's been the majority of time in their contract getting to know our community. And so our community already knows our community. So if we can be building their capacity so that more of these contracts are being awarded to the community who already knows who they are, then that would maybe have a huge benefit for economic prosperity on our island as well. Yeah, that's a great suggestion. I know we have one man left to go and I do wanna bring up the amazing program that you've been doing, the resilience hubs, if you can briefly tell us about what that looks like. And yeah, just go. Yes, so in one minute. So we've all worked with probably over 40 communities and it's really community led and we have just been more behind the scenes supporting in building capacity in providing administrative support. But these are community led, community driven initiatives in physical spaces that look like anything from a church to a county parks gym to a nonprofit organization. It's that understand the needs of community and bring those together from their community to meet the needs in their community. It has gone in its first iteration from emergency supports around food, access to food and assistance in connecting kids to distance learning. It has moved to building economic resilience and communities ideas around designing and innovating of what economic initiatives might be successful in their community. And we're looking now at our third round of supporting these community hubs and just really excited about what's to come. That's wonderful. I know we could talk for hours and I was so happy that we got to chat and that's who hear you now about the work that you're doing and the importance of it. Mahalo, thank you very much. I am Nadar Mordecai and we were speaking and I was speaking with Janice Ikeda, the executive director of Vibrant Hawaii, aloha. Aloha.