Hawaii says 30 Lahaina fire survivors are moving into housing daily but 3,000 are still in hotels
HONOLULU– Hawaii Governor Josh Green said Wednesday that some 3,000 people displaced by the Lahaina wildfires are still living in hotels more than seven months after the August fire, but that up to 30 people are moving every day long-term housing.
Green told a news conference that the state and federal government have established enough long-term rental housing to house everyone currently staying at one of the 11 hotels where survivors are still staying. The state and federal governments are also building some modular temporary housing units for displaced residents. Green said he expects all displaced residents to leave the hotels by July 1.
Nearly 8,000 Lahaina residents lived in 40 hotels in the days immediately following the fire.
Maui has a serious housing shortage. In West Maui, a large portion of existing homes have been used as vacation rentals for tourists. In December, Green threatened to use the “hammer” of emergency orders to impose a moratorium on short-term rentals in Maui if enough property owners did not make their homes available to Lahaina residents.
But Green said Wednesday that such a moratorium will not be necessary. He said the state has contracts for 1,300 units and the number of households in hotels has fallen below 1,300.
One problem now, Green said, is that many available rental properties are not in West Maui, and some Lahaina residents have turned them down because they want to stay near their jobs and their children’s schools.
“Many people have been offered an apartment or housing but have turned it down because it is too far away from West Maui, or it did not fit their family circumstances,” Green said.
Green said people will be given four chances to accept accommodation offered and two chances to appeal any option offered. He said some people have had housing turned down four, five and even six times. Green said authorities are trying to be understanding because they don’t want to disrupt people’s lives further, but eventually people will have to leave hotels.
“Once that transitional housing comes online, people are going to have to move into that, quite frankly, if they haven’t already left the hotels, because that’s only fair,” Green said. “We need the resources so we can build the next school, so we can rebuild clinics that were lost in the fire.”
The fire destroyed 3,971 properties and caused $4 billion to $6 billion in property damage.
Of these buildings, 561 were occupied by homeowners. A quarter of these lots have already been cleared of debris, Green said.
“That means sometime later this year they will get permits to start rebuilding in Lahaina,” Green said, while acknowledging that water, sewer and electrical services will need to be restored to these lots.