A new report by the University of Hawaii says many survivors will likely experience post-traumatic stress and depression in the fire’s aftermath and a lack of trust in public officials.

Two of the biggest challenges in the immediate and long-term aftermath of the Aug. 8 fire that destroyed most of Lahaina and killed at least 115 people will be the mental health of survivors and the need to ensure government transparency in the recovery, according to a new report from the University of Hawaii.

“The health effects of the disaster are profound. They go beyond the tragic loss of lives and the immediate injuries that many suffered,” according to the report released Thursday by the university’s Economic Research Organization.

The report, titled “After the Maui wildfires: The road ahead,” was prepared by 16 experts from a variety of disciplines including economics, environmental science, public health, finance and governance.

A brush fire razed Lahaina in West Maui, Aug. 8. (Nathan Eagle/Civil Beat/2023)

The experts said research conducted in the aftermath of the 2018 Camp Fire that killed 85 people and leveled the California community of Paradise, and other major wildfires, found a significant rise in post-traumatic stress, depression and anxiety disorders among survivors both right after the disaster and often years later.

Mental health impacts from fires can also trigger physiological damage to hormone regulation, the heart, and the brain, the report found.

While signifiant federal and state resources are being deployed to Lahaina, it’s imperative to find enough qualified mental health practitioners to care for fire survivors, and that will likely be a big challenge in the medium and long term, the report says.

It’s also important to have mental health practitioners with ties to the local community and culture.

That could be especially difficult given Hawaii’s severe shortage of psychiatrists, psychologists, licensed clinical social workers and mental health therapists, particularly on the neighbor islands.

The Maui Community Mental Health Center is offering to help those affected by the recent wildfires. (Kevin Fujii/Civil Beat/2023)

Besides that, there’s the logistical problems. Much of Lahaina’s healthcare infrastructure burned down and many people who might have driven to Central Maui for mental health care are now carless.

Given all that, it’s critical that services be made available close to survivors, whether they’re in Lahaina, Kula, where more than a dozen homes were destroyed in the Upcountry fires, or elsewhere on Maui, the report found.

The Hawaii Department of Health appears to be aware of the needs and is taking steps to meet them.

“We understand the behavioral health impacts from the Maui wildfires are severe and are likely to be long lasting,” said Marian Tsuji, the state’s deputy director of behavioral health, in a news release. “We also know that the impacts may not be revealed for weeks or even months after the disaster.”

Tsuji’s department is working with community partners to make sure that Maui residents have access to comprehensive and culturally sensitive behavioral health support. This includes a wellness navigator program for survivors staying in hotels. The navigators go door to door with carts containing toiletries, snacks, toys for children and other donated items, and they offer information about mental health services.

“There is a danger that post-disaster governance will be hobbled by bureaucratic turf battles and fragmented jurisdictions of authority.”

UHERO Report

The department is setting up telepsychiatry services and hiring local behavioral health clinicians to provide support to survivors for several months.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has provided four federal behavioral health providers on Maui to assist, according to DOH.

Locations for in-person behavioral health visits include the Lahaina Comprehensive Health Center at Akoakoa Place below the Lahaina Civic Center and the Maui Community Mental Health Clinic at 121 Mahalani Street in Wailuku.

The Hawaii CARES Crisis Line is also available 24/7 by calling or texting 988 or visiting hicares.hawaii.gov.

The department plans to create peer support groups, increase telehealth services as communications are restored, and add additional crisis hotlines, according to the release.

Efficient government coordination and transparency will be key to the recovery from the Maui fires, the report found. (Nathan Eagle/Civil Beat/2023)

Meanwhile, as the recovery moves forward, the University of Hawaii report emphasized the need for efficient government coordination and transparency.

Effective governance of the recovery will involve state and county governments, local nonprofits, community groups, FEMA and other federal agencies.

“There is a danger that post-disaster governance will be hobbled by bureaucratic turf battles and fragmented jurisdictions of authority,” according to the report.

The other issue is regaining the community’s trust, said UH political science expert Colin Moore.

Colin Moore says rebuilding public trust in government will be a real challenge. (Courtesy: UHERO)

Post-disaster redevelopment environments often favor “big top-down strategies that leave the community feeling left out or not being consulted,” he said.

In West Maui, trust in government was already a problem even before the fire. It experiences one of the lowest voter turnouts of any place of the island, an indicator that people don’t feel invested in elected leaders, Moore said during a press conference.

It’s going to be a “real challenge” to rebuild that trust, Moore said. One way to approach that is to create as inclusive a governance system as possible, to involve community stakeholders “from day one,” he said.

That’s probably going to take many community meetings facilitated by outside professionals and it’s going to require lots of transparency on the part of government. All that’s necessary to make sure the public is heard, knows how decisions are being made, has a seat at the table, and is confident that the millions of dollars in relief aid is reaching the people who need it the most, Moore said.

Civil Beat’s coverage of Maui County is supported in part by a grant from the Nuestro Futuro Foundation.

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Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen Jr. visits a distribution center at Lahaina Crossing. A deadly wildfire destroyed the city of Lahaina, Maui.

Deanne Fitzmaurice for NPR

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Deanne Fitzmaurice for NPR

Maui County Mayor Richard Bissen Jr. visits a distribution center at Lahaina Crossing. A deadly wildfire destroyed the city of Lahaina, Maui.

Deanne Fitzmaurice for NPR

LAHAINA, Hawaii — The scale of the physical damage in the historic center of Lahaina is clear in its apocalyptic landscape of rubble, ash and debris.

But the scale of the inner damage can be seen in the 5-year-old girl that Maui’s chief mental health administrator John Oliver saw the other day. The girl came with her mother into the Lahaina community health clinic, next to the main burn zone, clutching a green and purple plushy stuffed animal. She seemed withdrawn and afraid.

“I got down to her level and I asked her name and how she was doing, asked about her stuffed animal. And she just offered up that ‘I’m sad.’ And I said ‘I’m so sorry, why are you sad?’ And she said ‘I’m sad because I saw a lot of dead bodies.'”

Oliver told the girl how very sorry he was, and tried to reassure her saying ‘I want you to know that you’re safe now.’

“She smiled and we continued to play for a little bit and she said ‘you know I really miss my friend.’

I said, ‘I’m sorry to hear that’ and we talked a little more.”

Soon the psychiatrist came in and the mom told Oliver that when her daughter says she misses her friend, it’s her best friend. And she died in the wildfire.

Counselors here describe these early days of disaster mental health treatment as a kind of triage, psychological first aid for anguish that runs the spectrum of symptoms from deep sadness and sleeplessness to exhaustion, even breakdowns.

Wildfire wreckage is seen Thursday, Aug. 10, 2023, in Lahaina, Hawaii.

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Wildfire wreckage is seen Thursday, Aug. 10, 2023, in Lahaina, Hawaii.

Rick Bowmer/AP

“They’ve lost family, they’ve lost their pets. They’ve lost everything,” says south Maui clinical social worker Debbie Scott. She says for some who had to flee the flames, the initial shock is now giving way to wrenching anxiety, nightmares, anxiety, depression and sometimes anger, as the depth of the trauma settles in.

Survivors are still dealing with physical challenges like where they’ll be living in the coming weeks and months. But size of the emotional and psychological toll here is coming into sharper focus as the need for mental health support is growing. Mental health administrator Oliver calls it “the worst mental health disaster in our state’s modern history.”

“There’s a heaviness in the air that is — we’re destroyed,” social worker Scott says. “We’re not going to have all the answers right now.” She paused her private practice to help counsel the displaced at a community center in South Maui that’s been turned into a temporary shelter. “We’re coping.”

Evacuees at the south Maui shelter where Scott is working this week were offered the chance to move from shelter cots to much nicer accommodations in hotel rooms or Airbnb apartments. But several people did not want to go, Scott says, including an older man who felt safer in the shelter. Both of his hands were fully bandaged from serious burns. Scott went over and sat with him.

“I called him by his name and I said ‘listen let’s see about what we need to do to make sure you feel safe enough to get on that bus'” to a better temporary home.

Sometimes it’s the little things: he wanted his lost flip flops. Scott found them near the bathrooms. And it helped.

“It took some work but I did get him on that bus. And he was thankful to have his bags and he sure was thankful to have his flip flops. He needed his slippers, that was his need.”

Compounding the grief here, hundreds are still listed as unaccounted for. In addition, people can’t identify their lost loved ones. Only a few remains have been ID-ed so far. And some may never be found.

“If you break it down to one word we are trying to give people hope,” says 17-year veteran American Red Cross disaster mental health manager Stu Coulson. “Right now it’s all about active listening, empathy and trying to connect people with services.”

Ken Alba, a Lahaina, Hawaii, resident, carries a bag of ice at a food and supply distribution center set up in the parking lot of a shopping mall in Lahaina, Hawaii, Thursday, Aug. 17, 2023. The blazes incinerated the historic island community of Lahaina and killed more than 100 people.

Jae C. Hong/AP

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Ken Alba, a Lahaina, Hawaii, resident, carries a bag of ice at a food and supply distribution center set up in the parking lot of a shopping mall in Lahaina, Hawaii, Thursday, Aug. 17, 2023. The blazes incinerated the historic island community of Lahaina and killed more than 100 people.

Jae C. Hong/AP

Coulson has helped survivors navigate mental health needs in multiple, large disasters including the 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise, Calif., which until recently was the deadliest wildfire in modern history with at least 85 killed. The volunteer mobilized to Maui from Iowa as soon as scope of this disaster became apparent. “It’s the most devastating trauma I’ve experienced let alone that the clients I’m working with have experienced,” he says.

State and federal officials are trying to mobilize a fresh influx of mental health clinicians to help the some 65 clinicians already on the ground here, Maui behavioral health administrator Oliver says. To make that easier, Hawaii’s governor issued an emergency order temporarily waiving the state-licensing requirement for counseling.

But the need, and the hurt, are enormous. And getting care, and in some cases psychiatric medication, to the displaced scattered across the island is a mammoth task. Scott and other counselors here say in these early days of acute stress it’s not about intensive therapy, it’s more about listening and offering practical tools for comfort and care.

“Whether that is breathing, whether that is progressive muscle relaxation, whether that is mindfulness and meditative practices, just sitting, stretching, or talking story, making jokes,” she says.

Therapy animals, including psychotherapist Annie Vance’s black lab, is another tool getting deployed to help people cope

“This is my handsome boy and his name is Rio. I say he’s smart, smart and stubborn, he’s my best friend,” Vance says, introducing her nine-year-old dog. Vance lost her home in Lahaina in the wildfire. She and Rio are now volunteering at shelters and counseling Maui hotel employees affected by the fire.

“I’ve taken him to my sessions and people just love him. We get talking about the dog and we get talking about how are you and what happened to you,” she says, “and it gives a nice entrance into the conversations that need to be had.”

But who counsels the counselors who’ve had to flee a deadly wildfire and lost their home? Vance admits both she and Rio are weary. Vance and these other mental health professionals underscore that the fire survivors will be reckoning with their wounds for a very long time.

After she recently went to buy some much-needed clothes, she says Rio gave her a forlorn look.

“I ran out of the house with the dress I had on and one other and Rio got back into the car and he gave me this look like ‘mom I just want to go home. Are we going to go home now?’ And I just looked at him and cried and I said, ‘Rio honey, I want to go home too, but we don’t have a home anymore. But we’ll make the best of what we’ve got.'”

And she told Rio: ‘we’ll help each other get through this.’

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People’s physical and mental health could be affected by Maui wildfires

Dangerous wildfires — fueled by dry conditions and strong winds — are continuing to sweep across Maui, ravaging the small Hawaiian island.

At least 55 people have been killed and a majority of the historic town of Lahaina, which was once the capital of the Kingdom of Hawaii, has been destroyed, according to officials.

During a press briefing on Thursday, Gov. Josh Green called the wildfires “likely the largest natural disaster in Hawaii’s state history.”

MORE: Where do Maui evacuees go after losing homes in the Hawaii wildfires?

But the impacts go beyond evacuations and damaged buildings. Experts say the fires are also affecting residents’ and tourists’ physical health and could have impacts on their mental health.

Small particles from smoke can travel into lungs

Wildfire smoke is a mixture of gases, pollutants and particles that people can inhale, penetrating the lungs and even entering the bloodstream. Perhaps the biggest concern is fine particulate matter.

Fine particulate matter known as PM2.5, which is 30 times smaller in diameter than a human hair, is of particular concern.

PHOTO: A view of a triage center set up by Maui Memorial Hospital to treat victims of the Maui wildfires in Wailuku, Hawaii, Aug. 9, 2023. (Marco Garcia/Reuters)

Because these particles are too small to be seen with the naked eye, they can easily enter the nose and throat and can travel to the lungs, with some of the smallest particles even circulating in the bloodstream, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

PM2.5 can cause both short-term health effects, even for healthy people, including irritation of the eyes, nose and throat; coughing; sneezing; and shortness of breath. Conditions such as asthma and heart disease can become worse.

It doesn’t just affect people who are nearby, but also those who are thousands of miles away, said Dr. Kai Chen, an assistant professor of environmental health at Yale’s School of Public Health.

“We saw that evidence actually just two months ago. [Smoke from] the Canadian wildfires in Quebec impacted us here in New Haven, New York City and then further south to D.C.,” he told ABC News. “The reason we’re having so many frequent wildfires is climate change,” Chen said. “Climate change is literally like fuel to the fire.”

Wildfires can increase rates of anxiety, depression

In addition to physical health, there are also mental health impacts. Research has shown wildfires and the subsequent smoke can lead to increased rates of anxiety and depression and become worse among people who already have these conditions.

MORE: Maui’s cultural, historic landmarks damaged in the devastating wildfires

Dr. Steve Berkowitz, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, said wildfires and other natural disasters may also impact the ability of people with mental health conditions to receive care.

“After [Hurricane] Sandy in New York, one the biggest issues was getting people their methadone because all the clinics are closed,” he told ABC News.

Additionally, people can develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which can include intrusive thoughts and nightmares. Leaving mental health disorders untreated can have devastating consequences.

“People who develop any of these issues are at very high risk for suicide,” Berkowitz said. “People with PTSD or any of these trauma-related disorders will often be more irritable, have angry outbursts and that can lead to physical aggression and issues. Substance dependence is not an uncommon outcome of this.”

Avoidance is another hallmark of PTSD, but Berkowitz said this is not something that necessarily needs to be treated because it can be a coping mechanism.

PHOTO: A view of damage cause by wildfires in Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii, Aug. 10, 2023, in this screen grab obtained from a social media video. (Senator Brian Schatz Via Instagr/via Reuters)

“If avoidance is working, we don’t want to mess with it,” he said. “If it works, it works.”

Hospitals caring for patients

Hospitals on and around Maui say they have been caring for patients for burns, smoke inhalation and other fire-related injuries.

Dr. Art Chasen, trauma medical director at Maui Memorial Medical Center, described to ABC News what it’s been like treating patients who have been injured by the devastating wildfires.

He said staff saw about 40 patients throughout Tuesday night and into the morning. Chasen described a fireman who had become seriously injured while trying to save people from a burning structure.

“He just kept going back until he ran out of oxygen,” Chasen said. “He ended up somehow taking off his mask and collapsing in the fire. His fellow firefighters went in and rescued him. He had severe burns on his legs at the scene He coded, his heart hard stopped and so he received CPR for three to five minutes…and they brought him back and he was in our ICU overnight.”

The fireman was transferred to Queen’s Medical Center in Oahu. In total, nine patients were transferred to Queen’s and Straub Medical Center, also in Oahu.

Maui Memorial has seen about 60 patients total as of Friday morning, and Chasen expects a second wave of injured patients now that roads are reopening, but insisted that the hospital is not overwhelmed or struggling to accommodate patients.

People’s physical and mental health could be affected by Maui wildfires originally appeared on abcnews.go.com

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A local ʻohana of like-minded ocean-lovers, scientists, watermen and women, and fishers announced the formation of Fish Pono–Save Our Reefs, an organization with the vision of bringing awareness to the importance of replenishing herbivore fish populations to foster healthy coral reefs.

Fish Pono believes that by living pono, in balance with nature, communities will ensure healthy reefs, abundant with life for future generations. When herbivores- our reef’s lawnmowers- such as uhu (parrotfish), nenue (chubs), manini, kala and other surgeonfish, and sea urchins are in low abundance, coral reefs are overgrown with seaweed and begin to suffocate and die.

These ever-important lawnmowers, especially the uhu, must be abundant and thriving for seaweed to remain in check, corals to survive and flourish, and beaches to get their essential, desperately needed sand (uhu poop sand). 

Chlorurus spilurus male feeding at Hanauma Bay, Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi. PC: Keoki Stender / Fish Pono – Save Our Reefs

(Fish Pono–Save Our Reefs. James Watt / Henry Wolcott)

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Fish Pono TV and radio public service announcements feature well-known ocean enthusiasts, including ambassadors Nainoa Thompson from the Polynesian Voyaging Society, Dr. Randy Kosaki, research ecologist at the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, waterman and ocean safety expert Brian Keaulana, bodysurfing champion Mark Cunningham, and champion spear fisher Kimi Werner.

The public service announcements were filmed around Oʻahu and offer testimony of the importance of saving our uhu and our coral reefs. The TV and radio PSAs can be found at fishpono.org. 

Fish Pono–Save Our Reefs encourages fishers to consider these important recommendations to help save Hawaiʻi’s reefs:

• Avoid taking many uhu that help keep reefs clean and thriving. Also avoid taking too many other herbivores like chubs, surgeonfish, and sea urchin that play their part in coral reef health as well.
• Fish only what you need to feed yourself and share with your immediate family. Fish for your table not the freezer. By taking only what you need and not what you can, this allows our fisheries to replenish.
• Pass on your knowledge. When you see someone taking too many fish vital for reef health, speak up and honor the opportunity to educate. It’s everyone’s kuleana to fish pono.
• Spread the word. Share how you #FishPono on social media and let your friends and family know about our threatened reef ecosystem. There’s no better way to make an impact than to become an active advocate yourself.

Coral Reef scape in Kona, Hawaiʻi. By Bryce Groark / via Fish Pono – Save Our Reefs

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“As our islands and world oceans experience serious effects of climate change, including severe coral bleaching, a simple effort of giving uhu and other herbivore fishes a break, taking only what you need to feed your immediate family for that day, will save our coral reefs,” said Kosaki. “Herbivores allow corals to replenish and grow, and thus save our coastlines and coastal fishing for future generations. Scientists have found that uhu and surgeonfishes are particularly overfished, and highly populated islands like Oʻahu are at less than 5% of their original herbivore fish abundance.”

“Coral reefs are extremely valuable to Hawai‘i, providing subsistence and recreational fishing, coastal protection, surfable waves, tourism, medicines, and spiritual connection,” Kosaki added.

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Longtime Maui Behavioral Health Resources CEO Jud Cunningham is retiring after nearly three decades at the helm of an organization that has grown to 200 employees with almost 8,000 clients per year under three partner agencies. — Photo courtesy Maui Behavioral Health Resources

MAKAWAO — Jud Cunningham, a longtime leader of the largest nonprofit mental health treatment provider on Maui, smiled when asked why he got into social work decades ago.

“Being a service to others,” said the soon-to-be retired chief executive officer of Maui Behavioral Health Resources on Wednesday afternoon. “I always loved and always tried to be a social change agent, that’s what social work is all about and it can occur on different levels. I always liked community service.”

Cunningham began his employment with Aloha House in the fall of 1996 and is now completing his 27th year with the organization as CEO of Maui Behavioral Health Resources, which is the umbrella for partner agencies Aloha House Inc., Malama Family Recovery Center and Maui Youth & Family Services.

Retirement will begin on Friday for Cunningham, who will miss the meaningful relationships he formed and the day-to-day responsibilities.

The board of directors hired current Chief Operating Officer Nicole Hokoana to take his place beginning July 1.

Jud Cunningham is seen in 1996, the year he began his employment with Aloha House, a nonprofit outpatient and residential addiction treatment center in Makawao. — Photo courtesy Maui Behavioral Health Resources

“It has been an honor and a privilege to serve as CEO for this great organization,” Cunningham said in a statement. “The best part has been the opportunity to work alongside so many dedicated and compassionate people, including staff, independent contractors and community partners, who genuinely care about helping others to live more fulfilling, healthy and productive lives.”

While sitting in a conference room Wednesday at Aloha House, a nonprofit outpatient and residential addiction treatment center in Makawao, Cunningham shared with The Maui News how being a licensed social worker has taken him on a path of many twists and some unexpected turns, but one thing was clear — he had “a passion for identifying needs” and then finding ways to address them.

“He was just so kind and gentle,” Dr. Lisa Ponichtera, clinical director of Maui Behavioral Health Resources, recalled of meeting Cunningham for the first time about 20 years ago.

From a volunteer at Aloha House, to a Maui Drug Court program assistant, to a counselor and then to clinical director at Malama Family Recovery Center, Ponichtera said Wednesday night via phone that “he’s just allowed me to grow.”

“He’s just really allowed me to be creative and help me in a way that taught me and allowed me to develop myself as a person, as a leader, as somebody that works in this field, and now as an administrator,” she said. “He always saw the bigger picture. … He’s just a very wise person in this field of social work.”

Cunningham has more than 50 years of experience in behavioral health and human services, including more than 40 years as an administrator of behavioral health organizations. His work took him all over the nation, including lead social work positions in the Navajo Nation, Arizona and Washington state with mental health and child welfare before coming to Maui.

Cunningham also taught in the Department of Psychology for several years at the University of Hawaii Maui College.

He has served on the boards of numerous nonprofits, such as the Maui Memorial Medical Center Ethics Committee, the Hawaii Substance Abuse Coalition, the Hawaii Job Corps Community Advisory Council and the Kahului Rotary Club.

Cunningham began his career on Maui in 1992, when he served as center chief at the Maui Community Mental Health Center. During his time there, he was able to bring to fruition the idea of community mental health systems, which was gaining popularity on the Mainland, but hadn’t gained traction in Hawaii, according to Maui Behavioral Health Resources.

While there were mental health clinics and resources in Hawaii, the idea of community mental health systems was to provide more support for seriously mentally ill individuals through case management, evaluation and stabilization centers, day treatment facilities and housing.

When Cunningham began his work with Aloha House in 1996, he and his team expanded mental health and substance use treatment services for those in need in Maui County, which was no easy feat, but “I believed in it,” he said.

Aloha House was in debt and on the verge of closing, recalled retired board member Jerry Welch, but “Jud encouraged us to stay the course and we buckled our seat belts and hung on while he started using his expertise.”

“It took awhile but gradually we got out of debt and started expanding our services to our community,” Welch said last week. “Jud put together an awesome management team and this attracted some other agencies to wish to merge with Aloha House and eventually we became MBHR.”

In 2001, Aloha House and Malama Family Recovery Center, a gender-specific substance use treatment program for women, merged through an “interlocking boards” agreement, meaning that the governance and management of both organizations would be under one organization, according to Maui Behavioral Health Resources.

In 2008, a similar agreement was reached between the boards of Aloha House and Malama Family Recovery Center, and Maui Youth & Family Services.

Through various contracts and funding sources at the county, state and federal levels, Aloha House has been able to continue to build community-based support, including services and shelter for those in crisis.

Ponichtera said the decision to join the three agencies was a “very wise decision” and a crucial move for Maui.

“I’m not sure that anyone would have done that. It was a very big decision, it was fiscally responsible and very ahead of his time,” she added. “Rather than competing, it was joining, it was unifying, and I think that created an example in the community that people might want to do themselves.”

Aloha House went from having fewer than 15 staff and only a handful of residential clients to having 200 staff and serving almost 8,000 clients per year under three partner agencies, according to the organization.

Over the years, Cunningham spotted gaps in behavioral health services and sought to fill them, such as rebuilding an outpatient treatment program for substance abuse, adding detox and drug court programs, offering treatment for inmates transitioning out of the Maui Community Correctional Center, creating substance abuse prevention education camps for youth, recruiting quality staff for the agency, collaborating for much-needed funding and more.

“There are countless success stories,” Cunningham said.

Even amid the COVID-19 pandemic, he said, “we were determined to stay open” to ensure that mental, social and behavioral health needs were met, including the clean and sober housing options that have expanded throughout Central Maui.

“I have over the years walked around the various agencies and have been amazed at how he knew everybody’s names and often a lot about their families,” Welch said of Cunningham. “Though he will be staying with us on a consulting basis I will miss his regular presence around our campuses.”

His deep-rooted care for staff and the patients was evident on Wednesday as the CEO walked the halls of the dorms on the Aloha House campus, taking time to greet people and talk story.

The branch agency’s recent goal has been chipping away at the complex behavioral health issues within the homeless populations on Maui, Cunningham noted, which has already begun with the team’s Enhanced Coordinated Care outreach group, which helps individuals connect and stay engaged with treatment.

A permit is also pending to add another dormitory on the Aloha House campus for a residential treatment program to increase its bed count from 48 to up to 60, he said.

In the future, he hopes that the agency can garner funding for workforce development and certification needs for current and new staff, as well as to increase wages so that providers can stay on Maui — which is losing qualified medical personnel due to high costs of living.

“When the community understands the value of behavioral health care, a bigger investment will be made toward training, education and employee recruitment and retention costs,” he said.

Still, Cunningham has faith in the organization moving forward.

In retirement, he will be spending more time with his family as well as continuing some of his passions, like playing golf and basketball and staying involved in the community.

“I’m extremely optimistic about the future of this organization and the reason for that is because of the new leadership that’s coming into being,” Cunningham said. “We have this incredible team of people that we’ve been able to pull together, you know, to address the various aspects of operating an organization like this.”

* Staff Writer Dakota Grossman can be reached atdgrossman@mauinews.com.

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