The Mililani community has been instrumental in helping to identify the location for the workforce housing project on the campus. Earlier this year, SFA made a decision to relocate the project site—originally planned near the agricultural program at the upper campus—to the lower campus, adjacent to the athletic facilities. This decision was guided by feedback from the community.

“We appreciate the ongoing input and support from the community. We all share a common goal—to complete this project to support the Department of Education’s efforts to attract and retain teachers so that we can have qualified, licensed teachers for Hawai’i’s children,” Nakamura added. “It’s exciting to be building this together with the community.” Audrey Awaya, executive director of Pacific Housing, and Karen Arakawa and Lacey Shimabukuro of Pacific Housing's development team, participated in the neighborhood board meeting virtually and answered questions from the neighborhood board members and others from the community.

SFA and Pacific Housing are targeting groundbreaking for late 2027, with construction expected to take about two years to complete. For regular updates on the Mililani workforce housing projects, click here.

Preschool Access Helps Make Hawai‘i More Livable for Families

Access to affordable childcare and preschool has been a challenge facing Hawai‘i families for at least four decades, but Hawai‘i is beginning to make progress to address this challenge.

At a recent Civil Café, sponsored by Honolulu Civil Beat, Lt. Governor Sylvia Luke said that access to affordable preschool was initially considered an economic issue for working families because the high cost made up a significant portion of their household budget. Click here to view the recording of the Civil Café.

Lt. Governor Luke served as a panelist with Jeff Bock, director of UH Mānoa Children’s Center and president of the Hawai’i Association for the Education of Young Children; and director of the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa Children’s Center; and Ben Naki, executive vice president of Early Childhood Education Programs of Parents and Children Together and president of the Head Start Association of Hawaiʻi.

“Preschool access has been an aspirational goal for the State of Hawai‘i since I was in high school and I graduated from high school 40 years ago,” said Lt. Governor Luke. “So think of all the kids we left behind for 40 years.”

“The Ready Keiki initiative started as a cost of living issue. It was really about what it takes to live in Hawaii. Childcare and preschool were one of the highest costs, including owning a home, home ownership, housing costs, transportation costs, taxes, and other things,” she said. “So if we wanted to uplift the entire community, childcare and preschool, in addition to all the educational benefits, had to be a top of mind issue to tackle the cost of living in Hawai‘i.” 

Rapid Progress

The Ready Keiki program, established in 2023, intends to make universal access to preschool for all three- and four-year-old children by 2032. Through the collaborative efforts of the Hawai‘i School Facilities Authority (SFA) and other organizations in the community, rapid progress is being made to fulfill this ambitious but realistic goal.

Lt. Governor Luke said that based on data on birthrates and current need, the Ready Keiki initiative initially projected there was a need for 435 preschool classrooms for 9,000 children. She said that because of the rapid progress made by SFA, the Executive Office on Early Learning, and private partners over the past two years, the need has dropped to 295 preschool classrooms.

Newest Preschool Classroom Additions

The latest preschool classrooms, located on the ground floor of Hale Haukani, a new, $170-million graduate student housing complex, was made possible with a $10 million investment from SFA. The new housing complex, which consists of two residential towers with a total 316 units, is located on Dole Street between the East-West Center and Mānoa stream, and across the street from Frear Hall.

Bock, of the UH Mānoa Children’s Center, which is operating the preschool program, said the preschool will initially accommodate up to 40 keiki: two classrooms each with eight one-year-old children and two classrooms each with 12 three- and four-year olds. However, he has a bigger vision to eventually expand to serve as many as 125 children.

Photovolataic solar panels will cover the lānai of the outdoor area to enhance energy efficiency of the new building.

Multiple Benefits for the Community

The center, which operates under the Office of the Vice Provost for Student Success, offers multiple benefits for the community:

• Parents can rest assured that through quality childhood education, their children are receiving the benefits of brain development and educators can readily identify developmental delays. Studies show families with access to early education for their children are also more stable. Parents do not have to choose between working or sending their children to school.
• Bock said the preschool will prioritize serving the greater university community, including children of the East-West Center and Research Corporation of the University of Hawai‘i (RCUH) employees, and will be available to other keiki in the community as space allows. Graduate students with children will have convenient, easy access to childcare right in the building where they live. The new building will also include retail space, bike storage, study rooms, laundry facilities, and outdoor decks.
• With this onsite childcare benefit, the UH can attract graduate students as well as recruit and retain high-quality faculty for research and to share their knowledge by instructing Hawai‘i students in various fields.

“This is a milestone for UH Mānoa because it addresses a longstanding housing shortage,” said UH Mānoa Interim Provost Vassilis Syrmos in a news release. “Hale Haukani strengthens our ability to recruit and retain top graduate students who contribute to the cutting-edge research and teaching that make UH Mānoa one of the best universities in the world. 

• The on-campus preschool allows students pursuing their degree in early childhood education to gain hands-on experience to meet the state’s additional requirements to obtain an infant-toddler license to care for one-year-old children.