<Begin Segment 33>

MN: Let me ask you now about your involvement with the Keiro senior housing program. You were involved from the very beginning. How did talks of creating housing for Japanese American senior citizens begin?

KM: That was the dream of... our CEO at that time was Ed Hiroto. He had dreams of... because of the doctors were more or less, City View Hospital was, we closed it up because of that, it was not sufficient in having the kind of equipment and stuff that the bigger hospitals had, and so the diagnosis of patients would be not very good. So most of the doctors trying up with other bigger hospitals, so we couldn't see any future in the City View Hospital. So anyway, during that time, there was a need for Issei parents that were in a situation where they're widowed or widowers and living by themselves and with nobody to take care of. So the idea of a nursing home was pushed by Ed Hiroto. And so I think it was, at that particular time it was a good idea, and still is, I guess.

MN: Now, let's see. Ed Hiroto was the CEO with the Japanese Hospital. And then that, all the management was taken over to the City View Hospital, is that right?

KM: What was that now?

MN: The Japanese hospital... the City View, let's see. The Japanese Hospital, he was the CEO, and then you folks bought the City View Hospital?

KM: That's another hospital, right, and moved the Japanese hospital over to City View.

MN: And you were thinking about expanding?

KM: Right.

MN: But that idea never...

KM: Well, we bought the piece of property on Third and San Pedro where that shopping center is today, that little market, and they had a bowling alley there, too. Anyway, a group, Al Taira and a group bought that, and so our dream of a Japanese big hospital was sort of killed at that time.

MN: So, now, rather than expand the Japanese hospital, how did you come up with the idea of going into elderly care?

KM: That's why our idea was that one of the, since one of the dreams of Ed Hiroto was that we have something that would take care of the aging Issei parents. So that's why when we abandoned the idea of making a first-class Japanese hospital, our efforts were transferred over to creating a nursing and retirement home for the aging.

MN: Who came up with the name Keiro?

KM: Well, Keiro... I forgot what the... anyway, George Aratani, being a bilingual, very strong in Japanese, he came up with the idea of the name because of the reference to the elderly and the care or something like that, in that Keiro.

MN: Now I imagine you folks had to do a lot of fundraising. How did you go about making the funds?

KM: Well, the initial money was pushed through more the community, our community. But in... I forget what year that was when they had a big earthquake, so a lot of the buildings in the retirement home section were, what do you call it, not demolished but unoccupiable. So that we had to sort of demolish the old residence and build a new one. And at that time, the tag price was about six million dollars, and so we had George and Fred Wada who was the board, go to Japan to try to raise three million dollars in Japan. And at that time, we had a special permit, and the Japanese government allowed... because donations to a foreign country charitable was not deductible by the Japanese corporations. So we had an amendment to the law that, for the one-time donations to Keiro would be tax deductible. So we raised a little over three million dollars in Japan. So then we got the other three million from the local community. So it was enough to build a new facility which is now standing now, retirement home on Boyle Avenue.

MN: Tell us about how you got the building at Lincoln Heights.

KM: Huh? MN: The Lincoln Heights building.

KM: Oh, you mean Keiro nursing home? Originally there was an eighty-bed, we had to build an eighty-bed hospital, or nursing home there. And below, on Lincoln Park Avenue there, we had a, what they call Minami Keiro, which had, I forget how many beds, forty or fifty beds. And anyway, that had to be refurbished or demolished, so we had it demolished and decided to raise money for a three hundred-bed nursing home and expanding that eighty-bed nursing home. So we got a... in fact, we still owe them money. We probably owe four or five million dollars yet on a ten million dollar state funded or backed what do you call it? Bond, which is a low percentage yield, so it's tax-free bond that people buy. Anyway, we raised ten million dollars on that to build the Keiro nursing home expansion program.

MN: Now when you started with all the Keiro program, did you ever envision that it would become this big?

KM: No, not this big.

MN: Are you happy with the direction that it's going?

KM: Oh, yes, I'm very happy.

MN: During any of the fundraising time, did you have to mortgage your own house?

KM: Yeah. In fact, to guarantee the loans, yes. We had to mortgage or put up as collateral and guarantee the loan from the bank, right.

MN: So if the community and fundraising hadn't come through, what would have happened to your house?

KM: We'd probably got... we'd probably lose it, that's right.

MN: Did your wife know that you put that up for collateral?

KM: No.

MN: You never told her?

KM: Just told her, that's it. But we had confidence in it. We had confidence. Otherwise we wouldn't have really did it, I think.

<End Segment 33> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.