Happy Ending

A young family who lives in the bushes at Keaau Beach will be going to live in Washington state where the husband will be given work and the mother and child will get the health services they need.

Rep. John Mizuno has been working with Help the Hawaii Homeless, a non-profit organization helping to get services for homeless families and individuals. Together, they have been able to raise funds to purchase one-way airline tickets for 12 homeless people who have a place to stay on the mainland. The latest is this family of three: the mother, age 35, who suffers from fibromyalgia, the husband, and the 4 year old daughter who is autistic.

The family does not want their faces or names revealed as the biological father of the child has been stalking them. The mother recently re-united with her half-brother, whom she hasn't seen in 18 years, through a people-finder site on the internet. The brother offered to house the family and give the husband a job in construction if they were able to fly to Washington state.

Rep. Mizuno has two Facebook accounts - one has 3K followers, the other has 5K followers. He put out a media advisory for a press conference today to ask the public for assistance with airline tickets. He also put it up on Facebook, and early this morning they received a generous donation for the airline tickets and travel expenses. The donor lives on the mainland but is from Hawaii.

The family was forced to live in the bushes after a beach sweep earlier this year. The mother says that the hardest part of taking care of her child is meals. With fibromyalgia, it's difficult to make a fire to cook the meals and keep food from going bad so that she can feed her family.

Watch for news coverage tonight on a very happy ending for this family.