O'ahu's first state-sponsored Ke Kama Pono structured group home for troubled, nonviolent teens is expected to open in Kalaeloa sometime next year.

At an 'Ewa Neighborhood Board meeting recently, state Human Services Director Lillian Koller said the program has proved successful as a crime deterrent for at-risk youths in Honoka'a, on the Big Island, where the first Ke Kama Pono facility opened in 2005. The department now wants to set up similar programs in Kalaeloa, Captain Cook and Wailuku, she said.

The first home on the 50,000-square-foot Kalaeloa parcel will house 12 boys ages 13 to 17 and their adult supervisors who will keep watch 24 hours a day. State officials say the site has room for up to 60 youths.

Those who enter the federally funded program are referred by the Office of Youth Services and Family Court and are neither violent nor criminal, but need help that family or foster homes cannot provide, Koller told neighborhood board members. Neither a drug-rehabilitation facility nor a halfway house, she said, Ke Kama Pono is a prevention program that gives troubled teens an alternative to institutional settings. Often, they are runaways or victims of abuse or neglect, she said.

"It's not a compound; this is a house," Koller said. "The concept of a safe house is not to keep the public safe from the kids; it's exactly the opposite — it's to keep the kids safe from the public and some of the bad influences they've got themselves hooked into."

The teens are exposed to "a combination of academic, social, recreational and cultural activities to increase (their) independent living skills, constructive problem-solving and positive decision-making abilities," she said. "These activities also enhance their health, personal safety and overall well-being."

It costs about $650,000 annually to run each house with 12 teens, Department of Human Services officials said.

Koller said that as far as she knew, none of those who have gone through the program in Honoka'a has gone on to a criminal life.

The 'Ewa Neighborhood Board voted unanimously to support the project.