By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer
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John Webster sat in a room with 1,000 business people last year and was surprised when Gov. Linda Lingle addressed the group with a speech about Hawai'i's homeless problem.
"I thought this was an unusual way for the governor to spend her time with business people," said Webster, director of the Hogan Entrepreneurial Program at Chaminade University.
"She spent her entire 20 minutes talking about the homeless. But I was pleased."
Lingle's speech so inspired Webster that he returned to Chaminade and began formulating the idea for what has become a 12-page brochure encouraging Hawai'i businesses to hire homeless workers.
After spending nearly $4,000 researching and producing the brochure, the Hogan Entrepreneurial Program last month mailed it to 1,500 businesses on O'ahu. It includes data on the estimated 6,000 homeless people living in the Islands and the more than 200,000 "hidden homeless" in Hawai'i who have to share living arrangements with someone else or who depend on public assistance for shelter.
Perhaps more importantly for businesses, the brochure also provides information on the benefits of hiring homeless workers, including:
"It just seemed like a nice, logical, modest thing we can do," Webster said. "We just hope other businesses will pick up the brochure and be stimulated to act."
With Hawai'i enjoying one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country, Webster also hopes that businesses struggling to hire enough workers will look at homeless job candidates.
The brochure directs businesses to specific agencies to get more information or help. But Webster said his office would be glad to assist businesses, as well.
So far, however, Webster has received only one response to the mailing.
"I'm the only one that responded?" said Lane Muraoka, president of Big City Diner. "That's sad."
Muraoka and his managers have hired several homeless workers at their restaurants, along with employees with physical and mental disabilities.
In 2000, Muraoka's Big City Diner was named employer of the year by the state Department of Human Resources' Vocational Rehabilitation and Services for the Blind Division. That same year, a Big City Diner employee was also named employee of the year by the Vocational Rehabilitation and Services for the Blind Division.
"I tell my managers, 'We touch so many people's lives that we're more than just a restaurant business. There's the bigger picture,' " Muraoka said. "We're here for greater reasons than just a paycheck."
Muraoka and his wife share a two-bedroom, one-bath home with their two children and would like to buy something bigger, but can't afford it.
"That grounds you to think that there are so many people who don't even have a roof over their head," he said.
So Muraoka likes it when homeless employees such as Ella Yamamoto work out.
For the last year, Yamamoto, 52, has lived in a minivan at Kailua Beach Park with her husband and their 4-year-old granddaughter.
Yamamoto sleeps in the back while her husband squeezes into the front seats. Their granddaughter's bed is a futon on the floor of the van.
"I don't think people realize that a lot of homeless have jobs," Yamamoto said. "People just don't know it."
Yamamoto earns $8 an hour working mostly 40 hours per week as a prep cook at the Kailua Big City Diner. Instead of taking advantage of Big City Diner's perk of a free meal for each shift, Yamamoto asks for ice for the cooler they keep in the van and some rice, which she shares with other homeless people on the beach.
"There are other people worse off than us, so we try to share our food," Yamamoto said. "I'm the fortunate one — because I have a job."
Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com.
