Big Island woman on mission to establish housing, programs for keiki in need

At 14 years old, Ace Williamson ran away from his home in Kona to escape the beatings from his father.

Williamson, who once had to hold his drunk dad back by his shirt as he tried to stab a family friend who had bought them Costco groceries, said: “Things were just horrible.”

Williamson is among the many kids who have found paths to recovery from childhood trauma at Humanity Hale, a nonprofit founded in West Hawaiʻi in 2019 by Charis Higginson.

Humanity Hale was created to provide healing through therapy and a variety of programs for kids and teenagers who have been abused or neglected, bullied, orphaned, living in broken homes or foster care — many of whom are dealing with depression, anxiety and self-harming.

Higginson, 40, already provides support 24 hours a day, yearlong, to kids who need it. But she is working on a $1.2 million transitional housing project to have even greater reach.

Part of that funding includes $550,000 for the purchase of a 10-acre farm in South Kona, on which 16 tiny homes, a community center and communal kitchen would be built for foster kids who age out of the system at 18. The funding also would be for programming and staffing.

“I don’t care how long it takes, we’re going to get this done,” Higginson said.

There are more than 2,000 houseless kids in the state, according to the state Department of Human Services.

“That number should be zero,” Higginson said. “I don’t understand how that’s still a thing and that there’s no transitional housing.”

Humanity Hale has held fundraisers over the past couple of years to raise money for the projects. All proceeds raised go directly toward the future homes and programming.

For Higginson, who grew up on the Big Island, the project is personal. In her youth, she was sexually abused by a family member, and she has suffered physical abuse from family members and while in relationships.

Her road to healing from her childhood trauma was long and difficult. At 14, she started drinking alcohol to deal and cope.

“It was only in my mid-30s when I decided to stop drinking and really pull myself out of it,” Higginson said.

While working with kids on the mainland as a mentor for Sunburst Youth Academy & Awaken Arts, a military school for youth in California, she realized: “My gift is holding tremendous amounts of love and I’m able to sit there and look a kid in the eye and say: ‘Hey, I understand you…'”

Holding trauma inside is like poison in the body, she said.

“Our trauma is not our fault but our healing is our responsibility,” Higginson said. “When you constantly live in your victimhood and blame everybody else for the way that you are, then you’ll never come out of it.”

At Humanity Hale, Williamson and others have been able to meet with peers and mentors who have faced similar situations and trauma. Higginson also tries to make herself available whenever she is needed.

“I get phone calls on a Tuesday at midnight saying: ‘I want to cut, I have an urge to self-harm,’ and we just stay on the phone and we talk through it until that passes,” Higginson said.

Williamson, now 19, is living with his hanai (informal adoptive) mom and continues to work with Humanity Hale as a junior mentor. He said he wants to help the kids in the manner Higginson and other adult volunteers helped him blossom and learn skills necessary to function as an adult.

He started off at Humanity Hale as an introvert who felt isolated and didn’t want to talk to anybody. But the caring place “gave me people I could rely on,” he said.

In lieu of an established community center, which the proposed project will have, Humanity Hale provides life-enhancing programs such as Hawaiian Arts, Art Therapy, Individual & Group Therapy, Life Skills and Abuse Prevention & Diversity Training on Saturdays in space provided at Kuleana Education, located in Hōlualoa.

The program is open-ended and kids 8 to 17 can join at anytime. Currently, 16 show up regularly. Higginson said Humanity Hale also works with parents to care for the family as a whole.

When kids turn 18, Higginson said they can stay in the program as a junior mentor, which she described as a beautiful cycle. Young adults pass on the tools they’ve learned to cope and move forward from their trauma to the younger keiki.

Programs are led by trained staff, volunteers and mentors, including licensed psychotherapists, counselors, trained art therapists, Hawaiian cultural practitioners, skilled culinary specialists and social workers.

To donate or learn more about Humanity Hale, click here.