A turning point for SNAP: Strengthening local supports for Hawaiʻi households
Hawaiʻi has an opportunity to build a more resilient, community-driven food system—one that protects families regardless of federal uncertainty.
A path to more affordable housing: Rethinking county rules
County governments control what gets built through zoning, and through lengthy discretionary approvals. Both levers have historically been used to restrict supply.
Transformative change meets budget realities—a central lawmaking tension plays out in two new reports
Policy in Perspective 2025 and the Hawaiʻi Budget Primer FY2025–26 provide a compelling—and sometimes sobering—look at how Hawaiʻi invests, and often under-invests, in its communities.
Proposal to raise transit fares will hurt Oʻahu riders
Increasing transit fares while household budgets are already stretched thin risks pushing out the very riders who rely on TheBus the most while decreasing ridership and revenue.
Incoming federal tax cuts will heavily favor Hawaiʻi’s wealthiest residents
The State of Hawaiʻi has an obligation to shore up its revenue through tax policies that make the wealthiest among us pay their fair share.
Building a better path to success for Hawaiʻiʻs Keiki
Hawaiʻi’s 2025 legislature boosts safe routes to school and student transportation.
Congress’ budget blueprint leaves Hawaiʻi’s working families behind
In effect, the budget blueprint aims to take food out of the mouths of hungry keiki, so that billionaires can pad their pockets even more on the way to the bank.
Tax credits are more necessary than ever in 2025
Hawaiʻi’s families need urgent help to deal with the high cost of living. This is especially true for parents, who have to balance the cost of child care, rent, and food every month.
Hawaiʻi is even less affordable after the pandemic
How have jobs, wages and costs changed from before the COVID pandemic compared to after? These charts show changes from 2019 to 2022 that have affected livability for Hawaiʻi residents.
What Finland can teach us about ending homelessness in Hawaiʻi
Hawaiʻi can end homelessness. It starts with a mindset shift: housing is a human right, and the cost to provide housing to each and every person in Hawaiʻi is well worth the necessary investment in public resources.
Hawaiʻi’s housing market is a nightmare for working families; it doesn’t have to be
For a majority of Hawaiʻi residents, the prospect of owning a home—or even finding an affordable place to rent—is increasingly out of reach.
Put more money in working people’s pockets and reduce housing costs
This legislative session, Hawaiʻi Appleseed is pushing hard to implement a significant minimum wage increase, expand successful tax credits for low-income families, and lay the groundwork for housing policy that will mean no one in Hawaiʻi is left unsheltered because of poverty.
Our lack of decent, affordable housing costs us big time on healthcare
While the burden of poor health is surely felt most by the people who experience it, the whole community is affected.
Federal spending reduced overall poverty last year despite the pandemic-recession
But in Hawaiʻi, tens of thousands of residents below the poverty line still struggled to make ends meet.
A pandemic recession update in charts
Unprecedented job loss, a rise in housing costs, and inflation in food, fuel and consumer goods has made the pandemic recession especially devastating to Hawaiʻi’s working families.
Highlights from the 2021–2023 Hawaiʻi budget
Critical federal pandemic relief funds will allow the state avoid damaging cuts and maintain its spending levels on investments in the community.
Appleseed agenda 2021: stop cuts, boost working families and the economy
Hawaiʻi Appleseed’s work during the 2021 legislative session focuses on the areas most critical to preserving the strength and stability of Hawaiʻi people, families and communities.
How COVID-19 shaped Appleseed’s work in 2020
The year 2020 was a turbulent one, but it proved the power of Hawaiʻi’s greatest strength—its people.
The cost of housing, Hawaiʻi’s top expense, has skyrocketed since 1980
Housing costs in Hawaiʻi have grown by far more than any other household cost—an extraordinary 79 percent increase between 1980 and 2018.
Keeping Hawaiʻi’s affordable housing units affordable
Not only are we not building enough affordable homes to begin with, but we are also failing to maintain the affordability of many of the for-sale homes which were created.