Japanese Billionaire, Gensiro Kawamoto, is in the news again.  (Japanese Billionaire’s Kahala Homes Decried)

If you haven’t heard about this ongoing story, here is a background to it.

In March of 2007, Japanese real estate mogul Genshiro Kawamoto handed over three of his many multimillion-dollar homes in Oahu’s priciest neighborhood to homeless and low-income Native Hawaiian families on Thursday.  Kawamoto plans to open eight of his 22 Kahala neighborhood homes to needy Hawaiian families. He says they will be able to stay in the homes for up to 10 years. He added it showed more dedication to helping Hawaii’s homeless than just handing out cash. Kawamoto laughed when asked if he was concerned about losing money on the effort, saying, “This is pocket money for me.”

According to the Wikipedia entry about Kawamoto:

Kawamoto owns dozens of office buildings in Tokyounder the name Marugen and has been buying and selling real estate in Hawaiʻi and California since the 1980s, and has been accused of making money by driving real estate values down by various methods without respecting the current owners, buying them out and then selling them when the price increased.

Here is what doesn’t make sense to me,  he says he wants to help Hawaii’s homeless and low income native Hawaiians.  That’s fine and dandy, but he is only helping a select few. Why would you hand over the keys to a $5 million dollar home to one family?  If he really wants to maximize his benefit, this isn’t the way, and lets face it, he didn’t become a billionaire by being an idiot, but this is a pretty dumb way of helping people.

Here’s the thing.  Let’s say he sells ONE home for $5 million, goes and buys a vacant lot to build an apartment complex or he buys already built apartment complexes somewhere on this island.  Heck, he could even buy a few single family homes and do better than what he is doing now.  Give them free rent and have them pay their own utilities.  Would he not be benefiting more families?  $5 million should be able to buy you a 12-25 unit apartment complex.   Now multiply that by 8, and you really start to make a difference. 

This whole front that he wants to make a difference to people doesn’t add up.  On top of not maximizing his ability to make a difference, he is running these homes in the nicest neighborhood on the island into the ground where he does no maintenance and they are clearly an eye-sore.  He is irritating neighbors by doing so, and just drive by some of the houses to see the the condition and the picnic tables and weekend partying that goes on in the front yard. This has to be the worst idea I have ever seen for  ”trying to make a difference.”

Want to make a real difference, do what’s right for the neighborhood and for the people that need help.  After all, “It is just pocket money.”

Someone should approach him to invest in low-income housing which the state really is pushing for, and see what he is willing to do.