When Charles Nahale checked into a one-bedroom timeshare condo in Kapalua Bay, a prime tourist accommodation on Maui’s northwest coast, in mid-October, the front desk staff told him he would only stay 12 days. Native Hawaiian musician Nahale, who lost his West Maui home to a raging fire on Aug. 8, wasn’t surprised by the open declaration: he was part of a housing program, often bouncing from hotel to hotel at a moment’s notice. It is managed by the Red Cross and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
After the move, Nahale converted his pickup truck into a storage unit that was part closet, part pantry, filled with boxes of clothes and non-perishable food. He only brought toiletries and essentials to his hotel suite. When he got hungry he went to the truck to get a can of tuna. The only things he was able to save from the fire were a ukulele, a guitar, and some work clothes. “I live a nomadic life,” said Nahale, who is in his 60s. “What’s the point of unpacking if I’m moving again in 12 days?”
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The deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century, which burned the historic city of Lahaina to ashes, killed 100 people and destroyed 3% of Maui’s housing stock, has pushed the island’s long-running affordable housing crisis into a new turning point. More than 10,000 survivors lost their homes, and four months later 6,300 people remained sheltered in 33 hotels contracted with the Red Cross and Fema. For thousands of evacuees wandering around, the haphazard way the program was managed and the return of tourists to the fire-ravaged area in October had serious social consequences: residents are sharing concerns about rising suicide rates, and monthly calls to the county domestic violence hotline have been popping up since the disaster. has more than doubled.
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For the first two months after the fire, Kanani Lukela stayed in a two-bedroom unit at the Sands of Kahana Resort north of Lahaina with five family members and two emotional support dogs. The temporary space, where he thought he would stay for at least half a year, gave him the stability to begin to recover after a fire destroyed his home.
But on Oct. 17, just a week after West Maui reopened to tourism, the resort notified Lukela that her family would be moving to a different hotel 40 minutes away the next day, and that it did not have a kitchen where she could cook meals for her teenage children. . The move also meant she had to find a new home for the dogs because pets were not allowed on the property. He said the shock and stress of displacement once again brought him to the brink of collapse.
Lukela was certain the resort wanted to make more room for visitors. She said she held no hard feelings towards them, but felt the resort could have easily moved the tourists into a different room rather than completely moving the families who had lost everything. “The relocation broke my heart because the outside world doesn’t realize what we’re facing,” she said. “This was supposed to be a safe haven.”
In recent weeks, hundreds of survivors have been forced to move elsewhere as many hotels’ contracts with the Red Cross have expired. The precarious housing situation in which residents like Lukela and Nahale find themselves has led to legal action and protests. In October, Nahale filed a complaint with Hawaii’s civil rights commission over what he perceived as hotels’ preferential treatment of tourists. “The claim that we’re being displaced for tourists and that’s discrimination,” he said, adding that his family has lived on Maui for generations.
Over the past month, more than 100 households have transitioned into temporary long-term housing as a result of efforts with federal, state, county and nonprofit partners on a range of housing solutions, including tax incentives, direct Fema, the Red Cross said. leasing and charitable acquisition of rental properties.
“We are doing our best to communicate with survivors about any changes and expectations prior to any necessary moves to ensure minimal disruption to people’s lives,” Stephanie Fox, media relations officer for the American Red Cross, said in an email statement. “Our current protocol is to warn residents two weeks before the hotel contract is due.”
On Halloween, the eve of Nahale’s move-in date, a hotel manager informed her that she could stay until December 15th. The news brought little relief. “It’s hard to have the spirit of giving, the spirit of holiday, when you have nothing,” he said.
He said the return of visitors and the ongoing threat of displacement is a slap in the face to people who haven’t had a chance to fully process and heal from their trauma. For nearly a month, more than two dozen community organizers with the Lahaina Strong collective camped out on Kāʻanapali Beach, holding a fishing demonstration to call for temporary long-term housing.
With few long-term housing solutions available, island residents are looking for other solutions.
The most effective way to house fire survivors is to target short-term rentals and Airbnbs, said Matt Jachowski, a native Hawaiian software developer who founded the website Maui Hale Match, which matches displaced families with landlords and homeowners. More than 12,000 short-term rental homes on West and South Maui could easily house all of the evacuees, and many are currently vacant, according to Jachowski’s analysis of available property tax data.
By contrast, only about 3,100 units on the island are rented year-round, he said. Even if they were all vacant, “There’s nowhere near enough long-term rentals to house everyone,” he said.
Since Jachowski’s website went live in early October, it has received more than 900 housing requests but provided fewer than 100 matches. One reason for the mismatch is that market rents have skyrocketed since the fire: Monthly rents for one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments are $600 to $1,500 higher than fire survivors could afford, according to Jachowski’s actual analysis. real estate listings. “Landlords offer rents that only wealthy transplants or tourists can afford,” Jachowski said. “The money stops the process of providing housing to these people who have lost their homes and jobs and are still paying mortgages.”
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Hawaii governor Josh Green said his administration is working to convert 3,000 short-term rentals into long-term housing for displaced residents. He said the state and federal governments, through Fema, would encourage landlords to take two-year leases by paying them the same rental income they earned the previous year. Green said he’s prepared to issue a moratorium on short-term rentals if he can’t get enough homeowners on board. “I definitely understand people’s concerns and fears,” Green said. “We will not allow people to become homeless”
While Green sympathizes with survivors who find the return of tourists detrimental to their recovery, he said he has a responsibility to improve the economy for the many workers in the hospitality industry who must return to work. “It breaks my heart that we have to keep moving forward and we can’t stop for two to three years. We have to keep our economy alive, otherwise we won’t have the resources to pay for long-term rents, schools or hospitals,” Green said.
Officials estimate it could take two years for Lahaina residents to begin rebuilding their homes. Meanwhile, many people still have to pay mortgages because mortgage loans for burned-down houses have not been forgiven.
Brandon Fujiwara, a sous chef at the Old Lahaina Luau, lost his half-century-old family home in the fire. He currently stays with his wife, mother, brother-in-law and two children at the Honua Kai Resort, a sprawling resort with emerald green lawns and multiple pools in Kāʻanapali, north of Lahaina. He said he hopes the government will provide monetary assistance for mortgage or rent payments in the next few years because rents on West Maui, which is big enough for his family of six, are so expensive. After weeks of searching, he secured a three-bedroom apartment in Kīhei, a city 20 miles south of Lahaina. The rent will cost him more than $90,000 a year.
“There’s no way I can afford all this for the next three years,” Fujiwara said.
Due to rising housing costs in Lahaina in recent years, it has not been uncommon for multiple families and dozens of people to live together. ohana his style. On the vanished Front Street, the town’s main thoroughfare where mid-century homes were flanked by beloved cultural institutions, many households added accessory dwelling units (ADUs) to their main buildings to accommodate every resident.
Ester Dumayas, a Filipino immigrant who worked at the Royal Lahaina Resort, lived with 23 family members, including her five sisters and all their children, in a nine-bedroom, two-story house off Lahainaluna Road in Lahaina. Shortly after immigrating from the Philippines, Dumayas and her sisters worked two jobs, pooled their resources, and purchased the property in 1998.
They have been sheltering in five separate hotel rooms on Kāʻanapali Beach since the fire burned their home. Dumayas, 62, said he’s not sure the family could afford to build the same type of home under current building restrictions and construction costs.
“But we have 20 years of memories in that house,” he said. “So my kids said we have to rebuild no matter what.”
Meanwhile, thousands of Lahaina residents who lost their homes and businesses during the fire rely on community support to meet their most basic needs.
Uilani Kapu runs a relief distribution center with his family on Kāʻanapali Beach, providing children’s clothing, food, water and medicine to evacuees sheltered at nearby resorts. Five large community-led centers in West Maui serve more than 12,000 people a day, Kapu said. In October, he noticed more people requesting tents, sleeping bags and stoves; this was a sign that some of the survivors had become homeless. (About 200 wildfire victims and a similar number of undocumented immigrants who were homeless before the fire were deemed ineligible for the Red Cross’s non-congregate housing program.)
A tireless sense of generosity and resourcefulness is in Hawaiians’ DNA, Kapu said.
“Our grandparents grew up together. We grew up together. Our children and grandchildren are growing up together,” he said. “We are very excited because we have each other’s support forever.”
This is part of a series set in the aftermath of the Maui wildfires. Read the first story about the emerging mental health crisis among Maui’s children.