The pastor who serves as executive director of a state-funded transitional homeless shelter on the Wai'anae Coast has been hit with accusations of favoritism and discrimination by shelter workers and clients who say he runs the place as if it were his personal Christian colony.

Months of complaints have reached the state agency that oversees the shelter, and an official said the state is examining the results of a recent audit of the facility and is looking into the situation there.

When the $16.5 million Kahikolu 'Ohana Hale 'O Wai'anae transitional homeless shelter opened last year, it was hailed as the model for future projects that would greatly relieve O'ahu's mounting homelessness crisis.

Six months later, executive director Wade "Boo" Soares is accused of requiring residents to attend mandatory religion classes or face eviction, threatening and intimidating staff and clients, and taking in people who have not been verified as homeless.

Caseworkers say Soares even jeopardized the safety of a client by knowingly hiring her abusive husband to work at the facility, where she had gone to get away from him.

Complaints about the facility have dominated Nanakuli/Ma'ili Neighborhood Board housing committee meetings in recent months. And, on Feb. 19, four caseworkers filed complaints against Soares with the Hawaii Civil Rights Commission.

"He's bullying us," said caseworker Caroline Lopez, who said Soares has undermined her ability to serve as an advocate for her resident clients by making decisions based on his religious convictions. She said she lives in fear of being fired for expressing her opinions.

"He's made it a point to let us know that it's his way or we can leave. It's not comfortable anymore to be there. I'm leaving work crying. I'm at home upset."

Soares acknowledged he's had his share of difficulties getting the facility up and running smoothly but said other shelters have had similar problems. He also disputes the accusations Lopez and others have made against him.

Further, he said that all his shelter's programs are voluntary.

"I cannot shove my Jesus down anybody's throat," he said. "It would be against the law."

Soares said he has been entrusted with state funding to make certain the facility operates in a way that gets positive results. Sometimes that calls for tough love, he said. Sometimes that means being the father figure that many residents never had, he contends.

"And sometimes being the father doesn't feel good," he said. "I'm trying to teach them life skills in the sense of following directions so that when they go out there they can make it. And in holding the line, you've got to be firm. We're not talking about altar boys here."

Russ Saito, state comptroller and homeless solutions coordinator, said the state is looking into the matter. He said the state conducted an audit of the facility in February to see whether contract requirements are being met or whether corrective actions might be necessary.

Separately, he said, the state is looking into complaints and concerns about the facility that have been voiced at area neighborhood board housing committee meetings.

"We are reviewing all of the audit findings, and we are also following up on all issues that have been brought to our attention," Saito said.

Michael Ullman, a homeless services consultant familiar with O'ahu's shelter system, said that in terms of outreach background, Soares is the least experienced shelter operator on the Wai'anae Coast. But he said the state knew that going into the situation.

"And remember, the state pushed him to open earlier than he was ready to do," said Ullman, who has no affiliation with Kahikolu. "And that was a mistake — especially for a new agency. So, perhaps better management controls were in order."

HIRED ABUSIVE HUSBAND

For his part, Soares seemed startled by the complaints, particularly those made by the caseworkers to the Civil Rights Commission. He said he thought his working relationship with them had been going well. He recently give them a pay raise, he said. And following the state audit — which Soares said shows the operation of Kahikolu has been excellent — he gave them a day off.

"Yeah, there are problems here," he said. "But those problems are the norm."

Lopez, however, believes some of Soares' problems go beyond the norm. She was once homeless herself and has been through the shelter system on the Wai'anae Coast.

Her civil rights complaint blames him for making decisions based on his Christian beliefs.

"He chose to undermine my right to advocate for my clients for religious reasons," she said.

As an example, Lopez cited the case of a homeless woman who came to the shelter in part to get away from her abusive husband. Because the woman feared the man, Lopez felt that her own top priority was to protect her from all contact with the husband.

However, Lopez says Soares felt that shoring up the couple's marriage was more important. She said she was stunned to the point of tears to learn that Soares not only allowed the husband to enter the shelter as a resident, but hired the man as a duty officer — meaning the husband would have a master key to his wife's living unit.

Lopez, who had assured the woman she would protect her and even assist her in getting a temporary restraining order, said she succeeded in persuading the state to take the unusual step of granting the woman permission to move to another transitional shelter.

Before that could happen, though, Lopez said, Soares — meeting with the wife while her husband was present — talked the woman out of going.

Although Soares ultimately ended the husband's employment, retrieved his master key and escorted him off the premises for entering his wife's apartment without Soares' knowledge or permission, Lopez said the man has since been harassing his wife because he now knows her phone number and where she lives.

Weighing 350 pounds and standing more than 6 feet tall, Soares is an imposing figure. Well known in the community as "Pastor Boo," he heads up the Hawaii Coalition of Christian Churches, of which 'Ohana Hale 'O Wai'anae — the private, nonprofit organization that operates the facility — is an offshoot.

The 72-unit transitional and low-income affordable rental project began as a faith-based initiative that now fills four acres once occupied by an Uluwehi apartment complex that was demolished in 2005. Hawai'i taxpayers contributed more than $13 million to the facility, which opened last Aug. 20. There had been talk that Kahikolu would be the model for as many as five similar operations on O'ahu by as early as 2012.

Soares' recollection of the abused wife incident differs from that of Lopez. The couple had been longtime members of his church congregation, he said. When the husband asked Soares for help in repairing their marriage, the pastor said he agreed only with the wife's knowledge and consent.

Before the husband — a drug user with a history of abusive behavior — moved into the facility, he stayed at Soares' home for several weeks while he went through a detoxification program. The husband then moved into the facility with the understanding that he was to stay away from his wife except as part of a reconciliation process that would always involve Soares.

Soares said that when he learned the husband had entered his wife's apartment for a special meal she cooked him, only to turn "controlling and threatening" toward her, he realized the process had unraveled.

Soares said he spoke to the wife later that night, when the husband was not present. He said he spoke to her about what she wanted to do — not to talk her out of leaving.

She told him that since her husband would no longer be at the facility, she preferred to stay, he said.

The pastor makes no apologies for his approach.

"My whole job is reconciling families," he said. "I understand that there are times when it doesn't work out."

RELIGION AT ISSUE

Some at the facility say they have been persecuted by Soares because of their beliefs.

Logan Reiher, who lives at Kahikolu with his fiancee and children, is one of them. He feels he has been discriminated against by Soares because he is not a Christian. He said he was told he had to attend mandatory Christian prayer services, and later he was told he couldn't read a book about witchcraft outside his apartment.

"The only time he ever talked to me was when he was threatening me that he was going to kick me out," said Reiher, 20. "He's threatened so many people here. He says, 'If you don't do this you're going to get kicked out.' He told me if I didn't go to certain classes and stuff, I'd get kicked out, or there's a chance I'd get kicked out.

"And once you get threatened to get kicked out of a place so many times, you just want to leave, man. I'm moving out as soon as I can."

One person who says he actually got the boot is Malachi Araneta, 31.

An experienced food service worker, Araneta initially did volunteer work in Kahikolu's commercial kitchen until it temporarily shut down.

Araneta then helped set up the kitchen at the new Villages of Ma'ili transitional shelter on St. John's Road, where he has lived with his wife and child for the past month and where he is now employed as a cook.

Since landing a job is a high priority for residents at Kahikolu, Araneta thought Soares would be pleased at his outside work. However, after Soares learned that Araneta was working at the Villages of Ma'ili, Araneta said Soares told his wife, Tricia, he wanted the family to leave. According to Araneta, Soares regarded his work at another shelter as a betrayal.

Soares concedes he was disappointed by Araneta's decision to work at another shelter while he and his family were living at Kahikolu, and said he did suggest to Araneta's wife that the family might be happier living at the Villages of Ma'ili. But he insisted that he never told her to leave, and in fact told her he wanted the family to stay.

Araneta said that while he was at the shelter he found Soares' manner threatening and intimidating. Like Reiher, Araneta said he was uncomfortable with Soares' religious requirements.

"He said I had to go to Christian religion classes," said Araneta, who was raised a Jehovah's Witness and felt that being made to attend classes with teachings different from his own beliefs was unfair and discriminatory.

NUMEROUS COMPLAINTS

Meanwhile, Lopez said there are more than three dozen people living at the facility who have not been verified as homeless — meaning they were not referred by one of two designated homeless outreach agencies that have observed the people living outdoors, such as on the beach, on three separate occasions.

But Soares said that verification process only deals with people referred to an area emergency shelter. While Kahikolu had an emergency shelter component when it opened, the state decided it wanted Kahikolu to be a transitional and affordable housing facility only.

Soares complied by changing his emergency units to transitional. Since the shelter no longer had reserved emergency space, Soares let some area residents on the verge of homelessness enter the transitional units. He can do that, he said, because Kahikolu itself is a designated agency that can refer people to a transitional shelter.

According to Soares, some of the allegations about Kahikolu are based on persistent and untrue rumors — such as that residents must attend religious meetings, or that unmarried couples are forced to get married.

"Nothing is mandatory," he said of the programs at the facility. "And we've got people living together here who are not married. So what some people are saying, it's not true."

Cynthia Rezentes, who chairs the housing committee of the Nanakuli/Ma'ili Neighborhood Board, said committee members have been "overwhelmed with complaints" about Soares' handling of Kahikolu from those attending monthly housing meetings at St. Philip's Episcopal Church on St. John's Road.

According to committee minutes, those objections range from fears of retaliation at the facility to charges about the imposition of religious beliefs on residents.

While other topics have been taken up at the meetings, Rezentes said the subject of Pastor Boo and Kahikolu has dominated the discussion for several months.

"I'm kind of hoping that what's happening out there (at Kahikolu) is just learning curve," Rezentes said.