Recognizing the Kilohana Temporary Group Housing Site

Floor Speech

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Ms. TOKUDA. Mr. Speaker, for millions of our fellow Americans, Thanksgiving is about returning home, a time to gather with loved ones in a place both familiar and safe.

On my way back to Hawaii for the Thanksgiving recess, with long delays and packed airports and planes, it hit me for too many of our Maui ``family,'' ``ohana,'' this is but a sliver of what they have been trying to do for the past 16 months. They are just trying to go home.

A week before Thanksgiving, I joined the Folaumoeloa ``family,'' ``ohana'' as they became the first family to move into the new Kilohana Temporary Group Housing Site in Lahaina. By this spring, 167 modular units will house survivors and their families.

While these housing units can never replace what was lost, we hope they will soon be made homes by the people, the love, and the hopes and dreams that will fill the space between these walls.

A big ``thank you,'' ``mahalo'' to FEMA, the Army Corps of Engineers, the State of Hawaii, Maui County, and all our contractors and community partners for their hard work and dedication.

Thanks to them, families like the Folaumoeloas are moving in months ahead of schedule to a place where they can look ahead to the future and to what this community will one day be.

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