At 58, Donna works hard as a driver on Kauaʻi while also caring for her elderly mother, who depends on a pacemaker. When her mother was suddenly hospitalized, Donna had to step away from work to care for her. The lost income quickly put her behind on rent.
Donna was doing everything she could to keep her family afloat, but a past due rent notice left her worried about losing the affordable home she could barely afford to maintain.
Through Catholic Charities Hawaiʻi’s Community Assistance Program, Donna received help with her past-due rent in September 2025.
When Donna learned her application had been approved, she broke down in tears.
“I’ve been praying so hard and working as many hours as I can,” she said. “I’m just so thankful. My prayers have been answered.”
Donna’s experience reflects a much larger challenge facing working families across Hawaiʻi.
According to the 2025 State of ALICE in Hawaiʻi report, 45% of Hawaiʻi households were below the ALICE Threshold in 2023. That represents 224,179 households.
ALICE stands for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. These are households earning above the federal poverty level but not enough to afford the basic cost of living where they live.
In Hawaiʻi, 45% of households were ALICE, with 10% of that lives in poverty. The report found that basic needs cost significantly more than official poverty measures suggest. In 2023, a single adult needed an estimated $44,292 a year to meet the ALICE Household Survival Budget.
For working people like Donna, the challenge can be especially difficult. Half of Hawaiʻi’s delivery drivers and sales workers lived in households below the ALICE Threshold in 2023. These are people who are working but may still struggle to cover basic expenses when an unexpected crisis occurs.
Kauaʻi faces these challenges too. Forty two percent of households on Kauaʻi were below the ALICE Threshold in 2023. That means nearly half of the island’s households were either living in poverty or working but unable to afford the basics.
For Donna, one unexpected hospitalization changed everything. She had to choose between earning income and caring for her mother. Without assistance, that choice could have put her housing at risk.
Catholic Charities Hawaiʻi’s Community Assistance Program helped Donna get through that difficult moment and remain in her home.
In 2025, Catholic Charities Hawaiʻi helped more than 3,900 people on Kauaʻi, providing assistance to individuals and families facing urgent needs.
For Donna, the assistance meant more than catching up on rent. It meant keeping a roof over her head, continuing to care for her mother, and having the peace of mind to keep moving forward.
Her story is a reminder that financial hardship does not always look like unemployment. Sometimes, it looks like a hardworking person doing everything possible to stay afloat when an unexpected crisis makes it impossible to keep up.
Catholic Charities Hawaiʻi is there to help provide a lifeline when Hawaiʻi families need it most.
