For many rural areas in Hawaiʻi, direct mail service to your house is a luxury.
Puna resident Jon Olson picks up his mail in Pāhoa.
"The post office, the building you're looking at in Pāhoa, was built when I was still a child," Olson said. "And I just turned 79."
Olson said that post office was built for a plantation town.
"It was not intended to serve anywhere near the vastness of the area that it currently is being expected to do," Olson said.
Residents often find themselves in long lines, traveling far to pick up their mail and delayed service. Because of this, last week, the Hawaiʻi County Council unanimously passed a resolution urging the United States Postal Service to increase infrastructure after these long-time community concerns.
Councilmember Matt Kanealiʻi-Kleinfelder introduced the non-binding resolution.
"When I say Puna, we're talking about the whole district we see below Volcano to Kalapana, which encompasses to me three or four major post offices," Kanealiʻi-Kleinfelder said. "The Pāhoa, the Keaʻau Post Office, the Mountain View and the Kurtistown post offices. We have four and a satellite office facility in Puna."
According to the USPS, the Puna district covers two main facilities, there aren't plans for new post offices on the Big Island, nor anywhere within the state.
Kanealiʻi-Kleinfelder argues that population growth should warrant a change. Between census counts in 2010 to 2020, the district’s grown about 20%. It’s this same change that led to redistricting.
"Puna is third of the population of Hawaiʻi Island and we grew, I mean, we grew so heavily, they shrunk districts down and expanded this district to kind of account for our people move," he said.
Olson was part of the county's community development planning process three times. He said postal service has been an issue for decades.
"Every one of them has cited the need, and this goes back to 1993, the very first one that I actually chaired," Olson said. "It was the first community development plan to actually be adopted by ordinance."
But not much has changed. Most people stand in long lines during the day, Olson said.
"A lot of the people that you see standing in those long lines who wonder how it is they're still standing because it is very much trends to be a disabled group sitting in their walkers and in their wheelchairs," Olson said.
Without some action, this underserved area will continue down this path, Kanealiʻi-Kleinfelder said.
"We have the highest people who are unserved by broadband, we have folks who need this assistance," he said. "We don't get mail. Mail is a lifeline then for people who don't have access to other forms of connections in their life. So if we don't do this, you're really doing a disservice to people in our community."
