38 Years of Waiting… Now She’s About to Lose Everything

Imagine you waited 38 years of your adult life for a place to call home. You worked hard all your life and finally, finally…it felt like the stars aligned, and if you just reached out your hand you could touch them and hold their magic as your own. You dotted all the I’s and crossed all the T’s. You spent every last dime you had, to take the risk and make it happen. Not a dream home or even a Penthouse. Just a small piece of land…a place to reclaim that part of you that’s been drifting in chaos with nowhere to land.

For Native Hawaiians, land is not just property. It’s identity. It’s ancestry. It’s connection. It’s home in the deepest sense of the word.

My teacher, my friend, my Ohana…Leilani Kalilimoku Kaleiohi…a Native Hawaiian Elder…has spent nearly four decades on a waitlist for a program meant to help Native Hawaiians return to that connection…to secure a small plot of land and place a tiny home on it.

Thirty-eight years.

A timeline that feels like a lifetime waiting in the winds.

And then, finally…her name was called.

After all those years, the door opened.

She did everything right.

She followed every step.

She invested everything she had.

For the past 3½ to 4 years, she has been navigating permits, requirements, and rising costs…pouring every last dollar into making this long-awaited opportunity real.

But something changed.

Permits delayed so long that costs exploded. Everything seemed to have an expiration date.

What was once barely within reach has now become impossible to sustain.

And now, after 38 years of waiting and years of doing everything asked of her, she’s being told:

Give your land back.

Just like that.

No cushion. No safety net. No money back. No acknowledgment of the decades she has already given to this process.

To make matters worse, she is now behind on her current rent after putting everything she had into this dream.

She is standing at the edge of losing not just this opportunity…but her stability altogether.

This isn’t just about one woman.

This is about a system that asks you to wait a lifetime, just so they can move the finish line right before you cross it…a system with a broken structure that makes progress almost impossible.

It’s about soaring costs that erase decades of sacrifice.

It’s about how easily someone can do everything right…and still lose it all.

This door closed, but there’s an open window.

A narrow one.

She has to wait 6 months to a year to get her name called again. And yes, they’re making her start over completely.

With your help, we can:

• Help her cover the costs needed to secure her land and home

• Catch up on her rent so she has stability during this critical moment

• Ensure that 38 years of waiting does not end in loss

Every dollar is a step closer to turning this story of a heavy heart…into a home.

If you’ve ever believed that home is something worth fighting for…

If you’ve ever believed that no one should get left behind…

And always known the system can’t save us, but we will…

Please donate what you can.

And if you’re not able to give, sharing this story could make all the difference.

Let’s not let 38 years end like this.

Let’s help her finally come home.