[1] In his spare time he scours streets and parks in his district, looking for shopping carts homeless use to store and move their belongings.

[3] Brower was born at Kapiolani Medical Center in Honolulu, Hawaii.

His father, who is Caucasian, worked as a police sergeant; his mother, a Japanese-American, a schoolteacher.

He was raised in Belmar and Spring Lake, New Jersey where he attended elementary, middle and high school.

[4][5] He graduated from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa with a bachelor of arts in journalism in 1989.