Legislature makes historic investments in housing for Hawaiʻi’s most vulnerable

Hawaiʻi’s affordable housing and homelessness crises have existed for decades. Year after year, legislators have been unable to deliver consistent funding to invest in real solutions. This past session, Hawaiʻi’s legislature made historic investments and passed important regulatory changes that could signal a shift in the effort to finally solve our unique housing problems. However, this sessions’ successes must be only the first of many steps toward a Hawaiʻi in which housing is affordable and available to all.

DHHL Funding

Underfunded for decades, the Hawaiʻi State Department of Hawaiian Home Lands (DHHL) now has a backlog of more than 28,000 applicants awaiting homestead or agricultural lands. To help the department try to begin to catch up, the legislature appropriated a one-time investment of $600 million through HB2511. 

Native Hawaiians continue to be overrepresented in the state’s houseless population. Those on the DHHL waitlist also experience a higher housing cost burden and higher rates of overcrowding. This $600 million infusion should allow DHHL to make significant progress in clearing its waiting list, while serving its mission of providing long-term and low cost land leases to individuals who are 50 percent or more Native Hawaiian.

Emergency Housing Subsidies

HB2233 dedicated $23 million to provide $500 monthly housing assistance payments to enrollees in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and Temporary Assistance for Other Needy Families (TAONF) program. The federally-funded and state-matched TANF program provides cash assistance to low-income families, while the TAONF program uses state-only dollars to provide assistance to families who are non-citizens. 

Even though the federal government provides states with an annual TANF block grant, several states, including Hawaiʻi, have unspent funds in their TANF reserves. In 2020, Hawaiʻi had $380 million in unspent TANF funds, which is the second highest in the nation. Allowing these unspent funds to go toward housing subsidies represents a major shift in fiscal policy for the state that will undoubtedly improve housing security for the state’s most vulnerable working families.

Housing Voucher Protections

The legislature also took steps to create protections from discrimination against tenants who use Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers to pay for housing. SB206 prohibits discrimination in both advertisements and rental transactions that are based on participation in the housing voucher program. These federally-funded vouchers provide valuable rent subsidies to low-income households and can be extremely helpful in improving housing security.

However, voucher holders are responsible for securing their own housing, and many find it challenging to do so when landlords are reluctant to accept them. Currently, landlords can freely post advertisements that explicitly state “No Section 8” or “No Vouchers Accepted.” Landlords are also free to openly deny housing to a Section 8 voucher holder based solely on their participation in the program. 

The practice of denying housing based a person’s source of income is blatantly discriminatory and a reminder of the outsized role that discrimination plays in our housing market, even to this day. Hawaiʻi now joins 15 states and the District of Columbia that have passed similar protections for Section 8 voucher holders.

Stop-Gap Investment

The ultimate solution to houselessness is permanent housing, but an important stop-gap in any strategy to address houselessness is providing access to temporary housing and wrap-around services. To help fill this stop-gap, the legislature passed HB2512, which extends the ʻOhana Zones pilot program. Initiated in 2018, the ʻOhana Zones program creates designated areas where houseless individuals can access temporary housing and wrap-around services. HB2512 extends the program through 2026 and appropriates an additional $15 million to fund the program over the next four years. 

Another proposal, SB3018, sought to establish a kauhale program, which would have provided development exemptions to affordable housing projects that serve chronically houseless individuals. These exemptions would dramatically expedite the permitting process for qualifying projects, allowing the state to create temporary housing at a rate closer to what is actually needed. While SB3018 stalled during the legislative session, a few of the key exemptions contained in the bill were eventually incorporated into HB2512. 

However, advocates and members of the houseless community had urged the legislature to create an advisory committee for the ʻOhana Zones program that would have included the perspectives of houseless and formerly-houseless individuals in the planning of Hawaiʻi’s houselessness strategy. Community input from those most impacted by a policy or program is a critical component of any successful housing strategy, but it was not incorporated into the final bill text. 

Leaders in the houseless community have raised concerns about the HONU project (an ʻOhana Zones initiative in Honolulu) that was spearheaded by the Honolulu Police Department and the City & County of Honolulu’s Department of Community Services. These leaders believe the project has been ineffective at resolving chronic homelessness, in part due to its lack of input from houseless individuals. 

While zoning and regulatory exemptions for affordable housing are key to getting more housing built, it is also imperative that community guidance—especially on the part of houseless individuals—be included in future versions of the ʻOhana Zones program.