Kauaʻi’s Embattled Drug Addiction Treatment Center For Youth Is No Longer Empty
A new day treatment program has already graduated dozens of adolescents.
A new treatment option for drug-dependent youth on Kauaʻi is breathing life into the island’s troubled $7 million adolescent treatment center, a taxpayer-funded facility that fell into disrepair over the four years that it stood vacant.
Ka Ulu I Ka Pono Academy, or KIPA, was built in 2019 on land donated for the purpose of establishing Kauaʻi’s first youth inpatient addiction service center since the Serenity House closed its doors after Hurricane ʻIniki ripped through the island in 1992. But the 16-bed facility could never attract an inpatient service provider.
The search for a residential program operator continues. In the meantime, the YMCA of Honolulu has transformed the facility into a counseling hub for Kauaʻi youth grappling with substance abuse or at risk of misusing drugs and alcohol.
The program debuted on Kauaʻi in October 2023 and has since provided care to 43 middle school and high school-aged youth.
Kauaʻi’s new $7 million Adolescent Treatment and Healing Center is in a rural setting, but close to a hospital. (Brittany Lyte/Civil Beat/2025)
“In the program we’re looking at what are the consequences of their drug use,” Jaunette DeMello, clinical director at YMCA of Honolulu, said. “What triggers them to use, who are the people, the places and the key feelings that come up that may cause them to go out there and use and who are the people in your life that can support you to be sober?”
First proposed in 2003, a facility to house an inpatient drug treatment program for youth on Kauaʻi had been a long time coming. Kauaʻi County built the facility on donated land in Kapaia with millions in state and county funds and, after a few false starts, hired an Oʻahu-based service provider to run the center. But the county swiftly cancelled its contract with that provider, citing problems with the company’s “performance and responsiveness.”
After years of funding shortfalls, lawsuits and controversial proposals to repurpose the eight-bedroom facility for other uses, Grove Farm, a development company, filed a legal challenge to take back control of the drug treatment center. The county reverted the deed back to the land donor after inertia set ambitions to open the treatment center on an uncertain course.
Frustrated over the vacant facility, Hawai‘i Health Systems Corp. in 2022 formed a nonprofit with the goal of taking over the building. That effort quickly fell apart. The nonprofit KIPA formed a year later and secured a 30-year lease to operate the treatment facility from Grove Farm.
Now, the new daytime treatment option has offered a much-needed promise of hope for some of Kauaʻi’s young people struggling with drug dependency.
Participation in the 20-week program is voluntary, with the Hawaiʻi Department of Health, state Department of Education and the Kauaʻi court system acting as referral pipelines. Youth receive group or individual counseling up to four times per week. Thirty adolescents have completed the program and 10 are enrolled currently.
Most teens turn to substance abuse for stress relief, describing a desire to feel “mellow, calm, or relaxed,” as the driver of their drug and alcohol use, according to a 2024 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study. Half of teens surveyed said they used drugs to have fun or experiment.
The study tracked more than 15,000 online health surveys from youth nationwide ages 13 to 18 and pointed to education and increasing the availability of youth mental health treatment as solutions.
Youth on Kauaʻi similarly turn to substance misuse to self-soothe or as a form of escapism, DeMello said.
It’s the YMCA of Honolulu’s first project on the Garden Isle. The nonprofit operates substance abuse treatment and prevention programs at YMCA facilities in Kalihi and Waiʻanae and at 28 middle school and high schools on Oʻahu, Molokaʻi and Lānaʻi.
Mel Rapozo, a longtime advocate for the treatment center, is frustrated by what he describes as a lack of political will to get the KIPA facility up and running. (Brittany Lyte/Civil Beat/2025)
Counselors from the YMCA of Honolulu initially traveled by airplane to provide day treatment to Kauaʻi youth. Last January the program acquired a full-time Kauaʻi-based counselor.
The program is funded by grant money from KIPA, which received a $1 million donation from the William Gross Family Foundation in 2023, and the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Division of the Hawaiʻi Department of Health. There is no cost to participating families.
Some of the youngsters who’ve completed the program have returned to school, acquired their GED, enlisted with the military or joined the workforce, according to DeMello.
Two adolescents who were referred to the program ultimately sought treatment off-island because they required a higher level of care than counselors at KIPA could provide. One of those youth checked into a residential treatment facility on Oʻahu. The other enrolled in the Youth Challenge Academy in Hilo.
This underscores the need for an inpatient drug and alcohol rehabilitation facilityfor youth on Kauaʻi. Young people on the island who experience a drug, alcohol or mental health crisis typically must fly off-island for treatment. But when all of the state’s drug rehab and psychiatric beds are full, which happens periodically, there’s no place for additional patients.
Off-island treatment often brings added logistical hurdles and travel expenses for parents or guardians that can result in prolonged periods of separation between youth who need care and their family.
Kauaʻi public schools also offer substance abuse prevention and treatment programming. But some youth who have participated in the fledgling KIPA counseling program aren’t enrolled in school or don’t attend classes regularly. Others prefer to receive care outside of school or require a higher level of care than they can find on campus, according to DeMello.
For participants who can’t find a ride to KIPA, Milo Haneberg, the on-site counselor, travels to meet youth at public parks, libraries or coffee shops near their homes. DeMello flies in from Honolulu periodically to provide training and oversight.
“These youth are showing up,” DeMello said. “That’s a success in itself, right?”
One of two classrooms at the KIPA facility in Kapaia where the Hawaiʻi Department of Education will host classes for public school students who have difficulty succeeding in traditional learning environments. (Brittany Lyte/Civil Beat/2025)
The four-member KIPA board consists of Battad, a minister, Kauaʻi County Council Chairman Mel Rapozo, retired banker Clyde Nakaya and advocate Tracy Fu, who lost her 26-year-old son Austin to a fentanyl overdose in August 2021.
The board is in active negotiations with a mainland-based inpatient treatment provider. Board members say they hope the facility can become a state model for inpatient adolescent treatment.
In August, the Hawaii Department of Education’s Alternative Learning Programs Branch plans to operate a pair of classrooms at the facility for public school students who have difficulty succeeding in traditional learning environments. The vision is for the classrooms to one day be where students can continue their public education while receiving inpatient treatment.
Yet as the KIPA board gains momentum toward the long-held goal of opening the facility for its intended purpose, old problems that plagued previous effortspersist, namely Hawaii’s dire shortage of health care workers and the difficult economics of the grant-dependent residential drug treatment business.
A county-funded feasibility study in 2013 questioned the cost-effectiveness of an adolescent substance abuse treatment facility on Kauaʻi because “only very few Kauaʻi adolescents would be appropriate for the service.”
While it’s uncertain exactly how many youth on Kauaʻi might require inpatient drug treatment, the DOE several years ago identified 20 to 25 students on the Garden Isle who may need this level of support.
The facility would also welcome youth from other islands. Rapozo, a longtime advocate for the treatment center, said keeping its 16 beds filled would be crucial to the program’s business model.
“We’ve had this facility up ready to go,” Rapozo said. “It’s turnkey. Everything’s here. And how many kids have we lost to drug addiction because of politics and just people dragging their feet? Getting this place operational should have always been the top priority.”