Few on our island have escaped the impact of the shortage of affordable housing. Whether one is experiencing it directly or not, it is affecting our families, friends, co-workers and neighbors, leaving a societal scar across the landscape of our island home, and the wound appears to be deepening over time.
The crisis that has emerged from not meeting our low- and middle-income housing needs on Kauai reflects the diversity found within our community, meaning there is no singular sector that has not been touched, and as such no singular housing solution will fit all our requirements.
An individual person experiencing chronic homelessness may need single-occupancy transitional housing and the support of social services, while a family with keiki may be more suited to multi-bedroom housing in closer proximity to schools. Farm workers need housing on agriculture land, and for our kupuna housing suitable to their transitional stage of life.
Affordable housing as we have known it in the past cannot by itself meet the needs of our diverse and changing population. We are at a critical juncture where we need to re-think our ideas of how to create a place we can each call home.
In the 2018 Kauai County General Plan it is stated that there is a current deficit of 1,400 housing units across income levels, with a projected need of approximately 9,000 homes by 2035. Additionally, and more importantly, 44 percent of our community is made up of cost-burdened households, meaning that more than 30 percent of their household income is spent on rent or mortgage.
At the same time, over the past year, the number of houses for sale on Kauai averaged between 800-900 properties at any given time. Yet between 2008-2015, 45 percent of homes sold were to mainland or international buyers. As the real estate market continues to be strong, and we see new single-housing construction flourish all around us, we are in fact in the middle of an affordability crisis.
We on Kauai are not alone in this crisis. The Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies found that 38.9 million households around the country are, like us, cost-burdened. One of the main issues (but certainly not the only) is the cost of building new housing on Kauai.
Affordable housing development, at least approached as we have in the past, often does not add up. Without government subsidies and policy support, the numbers don’t create enough of an incentive for developers to add to our inventory. So we must ask ourselves, is there another way?
Just as Gov. Ige and Mayor Kawakami each made a campaign promise to make affordable housing a priority, so have government leaders around the country — and they are starting to deliver. When government leaders, nonprofits, for-profit developers and communities get serious and creative about solving the affordable housing crisis, solutions can take shape to solve the shortage of low- and middle-income affordable housing.
There is a lot for Kauai to learn from others who have forged ahead of us and built momentum on the thrust created by strong political will and the desire to seriously address the impacts that are being felt communitywide.
Please join us in building a deeper understanding of what led us to this housing crisis to begin with, and then explore possible workable solutions so that all of our community can find a place to call home.
Five expert panelists will guide us in examining our current situation and dialogue with us on what it is going to take to transform this crisis into a realistic and manageable path forward. We welcome everyone in the community to join the conversation.
“Understanding the Affordable Housing Crisis Forum” is set for 6 to 8:30 p.m. tonight at Ha Cofffee Bar in Lihuse. Info: www.communitycoalitionkauai.org
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Anne Walton is with Community Coalition Kauai
Wonder if this gonna be another feel good meeting. They should be presenting a solution not hearing testimony
high taxes, red tape, regulation, and everything shipped in, is also part of the problem;
Hawaii is around 48th in the nation, of places to conduct business;
we are on the most remote islands in the world;
letting people build additional structures on existing lots would be good, the land is already there and no new land needed for that; “increased density”;
rk
There are always going to be shortages of “affordable” housing in desirable locations. Try to find affordable housing in Silicone Valley. I support private efforts to build affordable housing; I do not support using our tax dollars to benefit a select few instead of using those tax dollars for road repair, infrastructure, police and fire manpower and equipment, and projects that benefit the majority of residents. Why should our hard-earned tax dollars be spent to benefit a select few?
How hard can it be for the county to just build a few new “affordable $300,000”
Subdivisions….Just do it…no excuses please
Not hard at all. What do you want to sacrifice with your tax dollars?? Improved roads, refurbished park and beach bathrooms, increased Property Taxes, reduced Fire Fighters, less Police????
The “County” runs on your hard earned tax dollars. If you want them to subsidize homes to the tune of $300K, then you are paying for them. It’s not that hard. Let me know what you want to give up.
since when is $300,000 affordable to the service worker in Kauai? Maybe if the adults in the family work three jobs?
As long as the government keeps its stranglehold on the private sector via rules, regulations, restrictive zoning, bureaucratic obstruction and expensive, time consuming permitting this problem will NEVER be solved.
RG DeSoto
Just move if you can’t afford ut! People do ut all the time! San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, San Diego, etc…. are all expensive. People mive from there. Would you expect to live in Beverly Hill or Rancho Santa Fe because you want to? I don’t think so!
I am hoping that the county will once again allow Kauai residents to build an ADU on Agriculture land to allow family to assist with farming on family land and to provide an affordable housing option.
I am hoping the county will once again allow ADU’s on Agriculture zoned land. Will be good to help with farming and allow housing options.
Many wise comments here! To summarize the bad news. There is no cure for the affordable housing problem, and never will be! The only places “affordable” housing is worse is in Socialist Countries where everyone lives in squalor equally. Kauai is a beautiful gem that is only marred by development of any kind outside of existing population areas. People must pay more to live in the most desirable locations on earth, and there is no short cut to happiness for the poor. If the poor want a nice house they have to go to where nice houses are cheap. It ain’t, and never will be, Kauai!!
“Why should our hard-earned tax dollars be spent to benefit a select few?” “Just move if you can’t afford ut!”
Why should our hard-earned tax dollars (typically the people who say this don’t earn it in a hard way) be spent to benefit corporations and businesses instead of people in need? Housing people doesn’t benefit a few. It benefits businesses, communities and humanity. Affordable housing is of particularly importance in Hawaii because a large number of those in need happen to be Natives who have been displaced by foreign money and foreign colonizers. Land stolen from the Native Hawaiians and then sold to whites, and after that generally sold by whites at a profit and who continue to profit from those sales without any care or consideration for the people from whom that land was stolen.
Telling people who’ve lived somewhere for decades and have close community ties and family ties in the area to just “move if you can’t afford it” is not only ignorant, but fairly heartless and doesn’t take into consideration the big picture benefit of retaining communities and connections. But then people who focus on money as the measure of humanity have to be pretty heartless. It’s a shame that money is now eating the spirit of Aloha and the people pushing that can’t see the horror of where that leads.
What is a “native”? You throw the word around like we are supposed to know what that means. Anyone who is born here? Folks of Philippine, Portuguese, Japanese or other ethnic descent? Mixed bloodlines? Caucasions? Just who are you trying to stand up for? What about a family who has lived here for 10 years or 20 years but not born here. Please clarify.
Life has changed considerably since the 1800’s. The people who live here now have not had their land stolen from them, they weren’t even alive then! Most Hawaiians aren’t even 50% blood, much less 100% now. People move all of the time. Think about the people who immigrated across the world to make money for their families! It’s always about money and making a living. You can’t always get what you want. Grow up, or save some money. If you can’t afford to live here, you can’t just sit and whine about it and expect the gov’t to bail you out.
Nice. “Spirit of Aloha”? How about “Spirit of Reality” and “Stop yearning for the Past”.
So, you win the genetic lottery of being born here, on an island, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and you can’t leave for better opportunities and a better standard of living???????……because “retaining communities and connections”????????
It’s the 21st century! Wake up! If your family is struggling financially then you take action and go to where there are better opportunities! Do you think Honda, Toyota, IBM, Apple, Amazon are going magically appear on the islands and create all these wonderful high paying jobs??? Ah, yea, um, like, you are going to have to go to them. SMH.
Almost forgot. “Natives” and “sold to whites”. What are you,….90 years old? It is the 21st Century. Get over the racist BS.
Why is the discussion always about single-family homes? What is needed are affordable rental apartments, etc., that can be built at a much lower cost per unit. That is, if the bureaucracy will allow zoning, permitting, etc.
“Imported” laborers are the ones crying for “affordable” housing. They come to Hawaii to work the mediocre paying jobs, then they cry that they can’t afford to buy a home on those mediocre salaries. Why do they come here to work those low paying jobs when they know that the cost of living here is very high. Perhaps they assume that our governments will eventually make sure that they will be taken care of by the higher income taxpayers. The same taxpayers whom they complain don’t pay their fair share. Interesting, huh?
Hurricane would be the cure for the problem. The last time homes were affordable on kauai was after Hurricane Iniki. Right now the Powers have control on the inventory and restrict, tax, and prolong permits to ensure that their families can reap the rewards of high rents. How do you think they go to Las Vegas two, three, or four times a year. Their greedy politicians are in charge and helping their greedy families create the housing problem. A Hurricane would cure the problem. The planning Dept is nothing but crooks just like the DLNR that is getting investigated by the AG for illegal GPS jamming equipment.
Yea, I don’t think that’s how it works.
Homes cost a lot because the materials cost a lot to get here, and construction labor starts at $30/hour. The only way to make a truly inexpensive home is to have the material donated and labor donated. You think that is going to happen after a hurricane? Why?