A planned 31-home subdivision in Ma'ili is the most ambitious project Habitat for Humanity has attempted on O'ahu, and it comes at a time when the need has never been greater, nor the challenges more acute.

Organizers with Habitat for Humanity Leeward O'ahu borrowed the $1.5 million to pay for the 3.2-acre Kaukamana Hale subdivision land in the freewheeling days of relatively easy loans.

Now, in the face of a nationwide credit crunch, the prospects of raising the money to build the homes have turned far more daunting, said Susan Hughes, executive director for Leeward Habitat.

"We're just about $6 million short," she said. "It's like we need a miracle."

The Ma'ili subdivision is one of several Habitat for Humanity projects in the works.

"We are building all across the state," said Kathleen Hasegawa, executive director of Hawai'i Habitat for Humanity, an advocacy group that supports all seven Habitat affiliates across the state. "The need is astonishing right now."

The Kaua'i Habitat for Humanity has already completed a dozen houses on a planned 125-home project built on land purchased with donated money. Meanwhile, Habitat for Humanity Maui is in the planning stages on a 40-unit, six-story, high-rise apartment building.

But the Ma'ili project presents special challenges, both for the organization and the 31 families selected to move into the subdivision — 22 of which were selected from hundreds who flocked to three local application process meetings last month.

The timetable for raising the money and completing the homes is two years.

In the past, Leeward Habitat has focused on facilitating loans and house-building for folks who had the land to build on, but who otherwise couldn't afford to buy a home, Hughes said. Under those circumstances the process was relatively simple.

"Usually, that's been on Hawaiian Home Lands, so we could just easily piece together the funding for the construction," Hughes said.

The Kaukamana Hale campaign is different.

Leeward Habitat took out a loan to buy the Kaukamana Hale site, and it will put qualifying families into the new homes there. While those two- to five-bedroom homes will cost more because they will include the cost of the land, the price will still be less than $200,000 apiece — even for a five-bedroom home.

And the homes will come with a zero percent interest mortgage that will never go above $750 a month — making them extraordinarily affordable by Hawai'i standards.

Volunteer-operated Habitat affiliates raise money to build homes that are sold to qualified low-income partners who help build the homes. Mortgages are interest-free. Payments are used to finance homes for other partners.

MISSION IN MIND

Although it's unusual for an affiliate to borrow money to purchase land, as in the case of the Ma'ili project, the process otherwise remains the same, Hughes said.

"It's based on need and their willingness to partner, so it doesn't really change what our mission is and what we do," she said.

But now the time has come to raise the millions necessary to pay for building the homes, a task largely in the hands of development director Kealoha Areliano.

Areliano, who is general manager of Cheeseburger in Paradise in Waikiki, said she believes her volunteer work with Leeward Habitat is a way to honor her grandfather, who lived in Wai'anae for years and was actively involved in the community.

"Driving out there on that beautiful coastline and seeing all these tents and all these people living on the beach — that isn't what we want in Hawai'i," said Areliano, who was born on Maui, raised in Southern California, and returned to Hawai'i in 1993.

But finding the money to finish the job in the current economic environment is more daunting than when the project was begun.

Areliano, one of the board's newest members, said she sometimes wonders what she got herself into as chief fundraiser.

When she first asked the board about funding sources and where she would be expected to find money, "they told her, 'Well, talk to Oprah, talk to Bill Gates,' " Hughes said.

"It was like they thought Oprah was waiting by the phone so she could send me five mil," Areliano said with a chuckle.

"By the time I got on the board, they had pretty much already said, 'We're doing it,' so I kind of adopted it. It's totally fitting our mission, but I don't think it's fitting our pocketbooks. We've basically out-tapped the grants that are available."

'WE NEED A MIRACLE'

What has to happen, Areliano said, is a lot of old-fashioned fundraising on the part of volunteers — knock on doors, make phone calls, whatever it takes to get the money.

Bob Sullivan, vice president of Leeward Habitat, said most of the money for the land acquisition should eventually be paid for through federal Community Development Block Grant funds that are released through the City and County of Honolulu. But he agreed the money for building costs, infrastructure work and other expenses for the nearly $6 million project won't come easy.

Complicating the process are families that were still living on the site where the subdivision will be built. To acquire the land, Sullivan said, nine families living in substandard housing were evicted and given money to relocate, with a promise that they would be the first residents of Kaukamana Hale.

"The homeowners have left with the understanding that we're to build them a new home," Sullivan said, "Each of those families has qualified for a home. So, we're obligated to these nine families. It's our word. We promised them."

Alethea Haasenritter Pai Shon, 41, is one of about three dozen people from nine families who relocated from what was previously known as Kaukamana Village.

Although the upheaval has caused many "trials and tribulations" among the displaced families, Pai Shon said she and the others see the evictions as a way to a better future.

"We didn't look at it in a bad way," said Pai Shon, who, along with her husband, Mark, and four children, has temporarily settled into an older home in Makaha. "We looked at it as a new beginning."

The remaining 22 families selected from about 400 applicants were given no guarantees, Sullivan said.

"There was never a promise made to the people who applied," he said. "This was an application process. None of the remaining 22 homes were promised."

Still, Sullivan, along with Hughes and Areliano, are hoping that somehow, some way, the entire subdivision will be completed.

"It's a doable project," said Sullivan, who is the president of Aloha L.P. Gas. "But, we need a miracle and a half."