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From Homeowner to Homeless
The puzzling case of Roger Swanson

by By Anthony Pignataro

April 28, 2005

Right now nobody knows where Roger Swanson is. He’s been missing for the last month. Recent attempts by his family to find him proved fruitless. There are stories of him riding his bike up and down South Kihei Road but no one’s quite sure where he lives now. Some say he’s living on one of the Kam beaches or even in a storage unit.



Like many homeless people, Roger suffers from mental disorders. In his case, it’s Obsessive/Compulsive Disorder and clinical depression. It’s possible he doesn’t know why he’s homeless. It’s also possible he doesn’t know that he’s got more than $200,000 in the bank.



Roger is totally alone now. His family, what’s left of it, lives on the mainland. His brother, who’s long been his guardian, is terminally ill.



He’s been homeless since Mar. 16, the day the State of Hawaii ordered him evicted from the one bedroom Kihei condo he’d owned free and clear since 1999. His crime? Refusing to pay $3,500 in Kihei Kai Nani Homeowners Association fines.



The fines were for Swanson’s habit of collecting junk. He might have intimidated and harassed some of the people where he lived, but really, he got kicked out because of all the junk he piled on his lanai.



Because Swanson ignored the fines, the Kihei Kai Nani (KKN) Homeowners Association sued him, got the court to seize the home he owned and then auction it off. The legal matters took about five months.



“It’s a sad story,” said Matthew S. Kohm, a Wailuku attorney appointed by the court to act as commissioner over the auction. “I have a lot of compassion for Roger. But his own worst enemy is himself. Roger is difficult to help because he won’t let anybody help him. He’s extremely smart and manipulative. If he doesn’t get his way, he starts acting like a young child.”



At the same time, Roger’s story also shows the extent to which one homeowners association went to enforce their covenants and restrictions—even if it meant throwing a mentally disturbed man onto the street.  







Roger’s apartment at Kihei Kai Nani isn’t exactly oceanfront, but it is just a couple minutes walk to Kamaole Beach II, one of the best swimming beaches on Maui. It’s also in the heart of Kihei, between Denny’s and KKO.



The apartment, built in 1970, is typical condo living. It’s 621 square feet, with one bedroom and one bathroom. It comes equipped with a full sized washer/dryer.



According to people who know him, Roger was completely normal and healthy until about 20 years ago, when got into his 40s. Roger first came to Hawaii in the early 1960s, when he volunteered for the U.S. Army. For much of his three-year enlistment, Roger served in the 25th Infantry Division, based on Oahu. His job was to guard the secret Red Hill Underground Fuel Storage Facility just north of Honolulu.



“It’s a volcano filled with caves,” said his brother Donald, who also served in the army. “There are stories that there they stored nerve gas, atomic stuff, but I don’t know. It was a very secret thing. Roger was in those caves on a daily basis. I always wondered if there was any possible connection [to his later mental problems]. I have no basis to suspect one, but I just wonder.”



After the army, Roger got a college degree and went into banking, eventually working his way up to a vice president’s post at a Seattle savings and loan. But then his mother died, and Roger’s personality seemed to change.



He became brusque and depressed. Things got so bad he entered the Seattle VA hospital.



But his brother Donald lived on Maui at the time and owned a couple units at the Kihei Kai Nani. So Roger bought a place there.



On April 12, 1999, escrow closed on Kihei Kai Nani’s Unit #151. County property records show the unit had sold for as much as $139,000 back in 1990, but a depressed real estate market had brought the price down to $86,000, which Roger paid off entirely.



The day after escrow closed, Roger left the VA hospital in Seattle and got on a plane for Maui. Problems began almost immediately after he arrived.



That summer, residents and visitors at the Kai Nani began complaining to the Association of Roger’s “violent outbursts.” It got so bad that his brother Donald had to write to then-KKN board President Sandy McGowan.



“Both Roger and I are aware that his conduct in several cases is not acceptable in a condo environment and that he must work hard to control his outbursts,” Donald wrote on July 19, 1999.



A week later, McGowan wrote back. “Yes, I have had some very serious complaints about Roger’s incorrect and intolerable behavior,” she wrote. “Hopefully there will be no further violent outbursts and our guests, owners and staff will not feel threatened.”



The thing was, Roger’s situation—then and now—was apparently completely treatable. And everyone involved, including the homeowners association, knew it.



“If he takes anti-depressants and gets regular sessions with a psychologist, he’s okay,” Donald told me in a phone interview from his Northern California home. “The best treatment is a combination of both. One without the other doesn’t work—I know, because I’ve researched this extensively.”



But Roger wasn’t doing both. In fact, he didn’t seem to be doing either. As the value of Roger’s condo rose, so did the list of his KKN Association violations.



Current Kihei Kai Nani manager Victoria Bournkamp refused to comment for this story. Her boss, Nancy Price of Destination Maui, did not return repeated phone calls for comment.



Nonetheless, court records outline Roger Swanson’s “violations.” He fed birds on the property. He went dumpster diving, then began storing the trash and junk on his lanai and on the lawn in front of his apartment. He harassed Association staff—especially when they tried to make him stop dumpster diving. The Association fined Roger, who ignored the fines. This went on for months, then years.



Roger also piled trash into his apartment. As court-appointed commissioner, Matthew Kohm was able to arrange a visit to Roger’s apartment. He took photographs.



“The judge ordered me to go in,” he told me. “It was disgusting. It was worse than disgusting. There was serious health risk. He turned the electricity off when he’d leave, so there were maggots in the refrigerator. Roger would cook things. He’d smelt metal in his apartment. He would draw these blueprints, like in A Beautiful Mind. Some of [what he had] was pretty good junk.”



For those living next to Roger, the problem was magnified. Forget trying to rent units to tourists—the smell alone from Roger’s garbage heap probably ruled that out.



By the summer of 2003, the KKN Association had had enough. Citing rarely used though perfectly legal provisions in their voluminous Association Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions (CCRs), the Association went to court to force Roger into a judicial foreclosure. It didn’t matter that Roger held the deed to his condo—he wasn’t playing by the Kihei Kai Nani rules, so they would kick him out.



First they got a lien placed on his property in August, 2003. When Roger did nothing, they sued him.



“Defendant has failed and neglected to pay $3,925.93, said sum representing the share of common expenses and other charges assessed to said Property as of October 6, 2003,” wrote Association attorney Ray Wimberly in a court filing dated Nov. 6, 2003.



Let’s pause here a moment. Roger owed the Association $3,925.93. That’s all. Had he paid those fines, it’s almost certain he’d still be living in his apartment 151.



But Roger didn’t pay the fines. He ignored them. He also ignored the court summons delivered to him the same day his homeowners association sued him. Those were bad decisions, sure, but they were nothing compared to his choice to act as his own legal counsel.







“A person like Roger should never have been living in a place like that,” Kohm told me. “It doesn’t look good for the association that this guy got evicted. But living in a condo, you have to have agreements and harmony.”



Roger’s trial began before Judge Joel August on May 14, 2004. It continued on and off all summer. It didn’t go well for Roger. On Sept. 1, 2004, Judge August appointed Kohm as commissioner. His job would be to oversee the eventual auction.



“I suggested he declare bankruptcy,” said Kohm, who probably talked with Roger eight to 10 times during the case. “I suggested he get a reverse mortgage. But he said, ‘I’m so poor. All I have is this place. What can I do?’ He said he could make it go away.”



By this point, there was only one way to make it go away—have a psychologist declare Roger Swanson to be mentally incompetent. Had that happened, the court would have appointed a guardian over Roger, sold his condo and then placed all the proceeds into an annuity that would have provided Roger with a steady income and protection from any creditors.



But despite the fact that Roger’s brother Donald repeatedly spoke with psychologists and social workers at the Maui Veterans’ Clinic, it never happened.



“I kept calling the VA,” said Donald Swanson. “The office representative there made a half-hearted attempt to see [Roger]. I did everything I could to help him. But they just dropped the ball. The VA just sits on its hands. They have a vet here who needs help. Not financial help—he just needs someone to give him his medication and help him get over this.”



No one at the Maui Veterans Administration clinic or the VA center in Honolulu would discuss Roger Swanson’s case.



“We have to abide by the HIPAA Rule,” Fred Ballard, the public information officer for the VA in Honolulu told me, referring to the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act updated in 2003 to make VA case information completely confidential. “We need the veteran’s expressed written permission to release the records to his family. Without written permission, there’s nothing we can do.”



In fact, though Roger clearly has mental problems and obviously can’t take care of himself, he’s not completely lost.



“Roger is very functional,” said Kohm. “His disability only hits him in certain ways. He’s got a sense of humor. Roger can be charming. But only in in-depth conversations do you realize that it’s not all clicking.”



One day, coming out of another contentious court hearing, Kohm repeatedly asked Roger for access to the apartment. He needed to show it to prospective buyers. At the very least, he’d need to photograph it. But Roger kept saying no.



“I’m just too messy,” Kohm said Roger finally told him.



“Everybody’s got to be good at something,” Kohm replied, which he said prompted one of the only times he saw Roger laugh.



Times were becoming difficult for Roger. He had lived at Kihei Kai Nani for five years. It was his home in every sense of the word. But now he was facing eviction. And worse.







On Nov. 29. 2004, the day before Kohm was scheduled to auction off Roger’s home, Roger filed an extraordinary motion with the court. Handwritten on three pages of notebook paper, it was a plea for the court to stop the impending foreclosure and property auction.



He wrote that he had just filed for a “senior reverse mortgage” that would take “approximately 6 to 8 weeks” to go through. The mortgage, which had earlier been recommended by Kohm, would have been for $174,000.



“Since said real property is currently valued at approximately $325,000 dollars [sic], their [sic] completing said senior reverse mortgage is virtually assured,” Roger scrawled in all caps. “Defendant prays that the court suspend the sale of defendants [sic] property so that defendant can complete said mortgage, pay said judgment and save his home.”



Once again, Roger was too late. August scheduled a hearing for January, 2005 on the motion, but the auction went ahead as planned.



Held in the August’s courtroom, it attracted 13 approved bidders, which Kohm called “an unusually good turnout.” William S. Hurley of Kihei was the highest bidder, offering $265,000.



Of course, where Roger Swanson is concerned, nothing is certain. At a later confirmation hearing, where any new bid at least five percent greater than the last bid was acceptable, local realtor Rodrigo Bumanglag offered $288,000 for the property and got it. Reflecting Maui’s new real estate world, the price was an astonishing $202,000 more than Roger had paid just five years earlier.



Still, Roger fought to save his home. On Jan. 4, 2005, the hearing on his motion to suspend foreclosure came up at 8:15 a.m. Everyone was there—except Roger.



“[The] clerk stated that Mr. Swanson had contacted the court by telephone this morning at 8:05 am and indicated that he had missed the bus from Kihei,” is how the official trial minutes put it. By 9:21 a.m., when Roger still hadn’t showed up, Judge August denied the motion.



A few weeks later August ordered the Maui Police Department “to remove any tenants or occupants” from Kihei Kai Nani #151. Still, Roger and his heaps of garage and squalor remained. Kohm, who had always been concerned about Roger’s welfare, continued to try to help him.



“Despite warnings, contact, and help sought from family and the Veterans’ Administration, Defendant Swanson has not taken any steps to move out or get housing,” he wrote in a Mar. 16, 2005 declaration that asked Judge August to immediately transfer $10,000 from the sale proceeds to Swanson’s bank account. “An emergency exists such that the Commissioner would like to make funds available, so that once Swanson is evicted, some security is available.” August agreed, and approved the transfer the same day.



The drama reached a crescendo on Mar. 18, two days after the $10,000 transfer was approved. For reasons known only to him, Roger broke into his old apartment. The KKN Association—still relying on its tried and true regulations—called the police and had him thrown out.



Putting it mildly, Kohm said that “Roger took over everyone’s lives that week he was evicted.”



Roger eventually got a truck and moved his stuff out. The Kihei Kai Nani Association went back to court and got a restraining order, forbidding Roger from coming anywhere near the condo property, though tenants say he still pops up occasionally to ask about his mail. As far as where he’s living now, that’s a mystery.



And there doesn’t seem to be anything his family can do about it, except stew in fury.



“Talk about a board of directors that is totally inhuman,” Donald Swanson told me. “They think they’re like gods. They were aware of his condition. They gave lip service to him. But they threw him out with a cop on either side of him.” MTW